


Hospital Visits

by artiebird



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Autistic Character, Coma, During Canon, Gen, Hospitals, takes place after the play but before voices in my head
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-06-18 10:51:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 20,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15484128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artiebird/pseuds/artiebird
Summary: Michael stood outside Jeremy’s room for a solid minute, rocking on his heels and toes, preparing himself to see Jeremy’s lifeless body again. It didn’t occur to him even slightly that he might have thoughts about the other person in the room until he had already walked in. Rich Goranski was there, heavily bandaged.Rich Goranski, who had set fire to Jake Dillinger’s house. Rich Goranski, who introduced Jeremy to the squip. Rich Goranski, who now slept in a hospital bed, next to Jeremy’s, wrapped in gauze virtually head to toe. Frankly, with all that had happened since, he had forgotten about Rich, and Halloween, and all the godawful nonsense that had entailed.This is how Michael spent the few days after the shenanigans at the play, before Jeremy woke up. Kind of something character study adjacent. (Also, Michael's autistic.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I'm still brand new to writing still so please read with a grain of salt. I also have no editor and my autistic ass doesn't know how to read. Commentary from you is loved and appreciated but not expected.  
> 2\. Fucking? Can you believe? Michael has two mums in canon now. I was gonna say he has two mums 'cause I'm gay and I wrote it, but I don't have to. It's canon. I'm living.  
> 3\. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoy <3  
> 4\. ALSO I reutilised previous writing for most of the first chapter and some of the third one. It's from the last few chapters of [Be Less Uncool](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12763407). Self plagiarism is technically illegal, but I won't sue me, so I think it's okay? I'm not sure

“She’ll do whatever I want?”

Michael didn’t believe that Jeremy would really do it, but then again, the Jeremy he knew had only surfaced in one or two conversations in the last four months. The Jeremy that knew Michael was there, the Jeremy who thought of him, maybe, as a friend. That was the Jeremy who phoned him, the Jeremy he was supposed to be saving, but he just wasn’t sure, for certain, who Jeremy was right now.

He closed his eyes and hoped. He hoped very loudly, but only in his head. Maybe if he hoped loudly enough, Jeremy would feel empathy super hard and make the right decision. He kind of wished his eyes were open, though, because it would have been nice to see whatever visuals aligned with the outcome in which every person besides himself started screaming at the top of their lungs until fainting. That would have been nice.

And Michael? He was under a lot of stress. Everyone was screaming. They might all be dying? And it was extremely loud. He covered his ears and yelled too.

Eventually, everything went quiet, other than Michael’s own shouting. As he came too, a little, he stopped yelling but continued to hold his ears and close his eyes, trying to hold back tears while focusing on evening shaky and shallow breaths.

Soon enough, Michael opened his eyes. He didn’t know if he should leave or not, since he was not sure to what degree medical attention was required in this situation. Not that he had any to offer. He slowly sat down, looking at Jeremy’s lifeless body slumped over Christine’s. Nearer to himself was the drama teacher and some other students in the play, few of whom Michael recognised. Jake Dillinger was there. So was Brooke Lohst, Jeremy’s old girlfriend. He scooted away slightly, overwhelmed by the fact they had all been grabbing at him moments before.

Michael barely had the nerve to take his hands off his ears, and when he finally did, he put his headphones on and hit shuffle. His brain and all thoughts were an incoherent mess, but he was stable enough to recognise he had to calm down if he was going to be able to help anybody. As the adrenaline and overwhelmed feelings started to fade after a minute or two, he was able to remember how to talk well enough to take on the 911 dispatcher.

Michael continued to sit on the floor with his music playing after the dispatcher hung up. He was pretty sure dispatchers weren’t supposed to hang up. Then, he wondered if the dispatcher maybe thought he was making a prank call. It didn’t sound real—about ten people collapsing at the same time at a school play.

Oh wow, they were at a school play. He couldn’t imagine what the other side of the auditorium was like. Could the audience here the screaming? What the fuck? Why was no one here right now? If they couldn’t here it, what about all the parents in the foyer of the school, now waiting for their kids to tell them how well they did? The kids were dead on the floor of the auditorium.

Not dead, Michael reminded himself. Unconscious. (Although he hadn’t checked. He did not have the nerve to check.) He hoped the ambulance came soon, or someone woke up. He worried that maybe if they did think it was a prank, no one would come, but then he remembered a lesson he had as a kid where the man giving the lecture mentioned that pranking emergency services was bad because they aren’t allowed to not respond, so you’re taking away resources. That meant people had to be coming now, right?

After what had felt like forever while Michael was lost in his thoughts, Christine groaned and squirmed, trying to get out from beneath Jeremy’s weight. His heart skipped a beat, because if she wasn’t dead, the others probably weren’t either. She adjusted Jeremy back to the ground, careful not to hit his head. Michael watched her, politely unhelpful. She looked dazed and nervous at the same time.

“What happened?”

“You fainted. Everyone did ecstasy. It was bad.”

Michael lied. It was a garbage fire of a lie, but it might have made more sense than eating supercomputers. He also didn’t want to be blamed.

“No, it was… No. The little brain computer! Did you—did you have one too?”

“No.”

“Oh. That must sound ridiculous.”

“Yes. Or, no. It’s—that happened. They’re off. Everyone fainted.”

“Hey, are you okay?”

Michael was not sure if he was okay, or if he had the capacity to have a conversation right now. He opted to ignore the question.

“Um. I called 911. Can I leave?”

Christine nodded, probably not entirely on the same page as him, but Michael was desperate to leave, so he took it as the permission he wanted.


	2. Chapter 2

When Michael left the school, he sneaked out the back of the auditorium so that he could avoid any A Midsummer Nightmare About Zombies play goers concerned about their classmates and children who still hadn’t left the auditorium backstage area. Someone was bound to come down there looking eventually, ignoring the shoddy, paper printed “cast only” signs taped to the drama room doors.

He could hear sirens in the distance as he got into his car.

When he got home that evening, his mothers were in the living room watching Star Trek: The Voyage Home for what was probably the hundred thousandth time in their life. Michael could quote the movie by heart. 

They were careful when he came in, they knew how his last few encounters with Jeremy had been, and the look on Michael’s face didn’t do much to support that he had had a good time. But, relatively speaking, this was one of his better encounters with Jeremy this term.

“Hey, Mikey, how was the play?”

His mama was gentle and cautious, pausing the movie on a frame of Spock’s face. He was wearing that dorky headband he did whenever he had to look human. It made Michael smile.

“I saw half of it. I talked to Jeremy after—or, talk is a strong word.”

His mum frowned, but his mama just continued to look at him, letting him gather his thoughts.

“Um, we fought, a bit, and Jeremy’s going to the hospital, I think.”

“Michael Cameron M—”

“No! I didn’t—no. Uh, I think he did drugs? He fainted.”

His mum panicked for a moment, so Michael reacted fast, because he realised how what he had said sounded. His lie was still horrible, and there was an audible question mark in his voice, but his mum seemed to believe he didn’t really have the capability of putting another person in the hospital, so she apologised and sat back down. His mama put his mum's hand in her own.

He explained himself a little further, and his parents seemed content with his explanation and offered for him to join them for the movie, although he didn’t really have the energy. He also had a lot of things to think through, so he excused himself and went to bed.

As the hours passed, Michael couldn’t fathom how he had gone home so quickly. He wanted to be at the hospital. He wanted to be with Jeremy, and he was upset with himself for not having contacted Jeremy’s father, and he wanted to make sure his classmates were okay. Even the ones he thought he didn't care about.

By about eleven, when his parents were heading to bed, Michael got up. He couldn’t take it anymore. He let them know he was going to go to the hospital, just for a while, to check in with what had happened. His mothers looked at one another for a moment, his mum suggesting he try texting his (nonexistent) friends instead, and his mama offering the morning as a better time, but Michael’s mind was set. His parents also knew that he was probably going to go anyways, so they told him to stay safe and text when he was coming home.

The hospital smelled like cleaning products and metal. There was a sign that said that scented products weren’t allowed, but he couldn’t help but frown since it smelled enough as was. He held his sweater over his nose as he stood in line.

“Hi, how can I help you?”

The lady at the front desk a high and sweet voice and sounded like she was in a surprisingly good mood for someone who was at work at midnight. It might have been a fake good mood.

“Um, Jeremy Heere. Is he in this hospital? He collapsed today. I’m his, uh, friend. I want to visit.”

He wondered if he sounded believable. He wasn’t sure he believed himself, even though he was pretty sure he was telling the truth.

“One moment please… uh, yes. He’s here. You need to sign in as a visitor though, limited number at a time.”

“Okay.”

“Also, shared room. We don’t have strict visiting hours other than a couple off limits in the afternoon, but we’ll ask you to be quiet if his roommate is sleeping. Oh, and Jeremy isn’t awake either, yet, just in case you weren’t aware.”

“Okay.”

As Michael turned into a broken record and waited for the lady to get organised, he looked around. He didn’t like hospitals. They felt fake, and time didn’t pass right. And everything was so bright, it was like it wasn’t 12:07am on a school night. Finally he was told the room number, and he made his way.

When he got to the room he suddenly felt extremely nervous. His relationship with Jeremy had not been going, as Michael would put it, “well”. Despite this, based on their brief and confusing back and forth while de-squipping the cast of A Midsummer Nightmare About Zombies, Michael was trying to work off the assumption that Jeremy did not in fact hate him.

He wasn’t entirely sure which actions the squip had control of, and he wasn’t sure anything of what Jeremy actually thought. He also wasn’t getting any of these answers now, since apparently Jeremy wasn’t awake yet.

Jesus Fucking Christ, he hoped Jeremy was going to wake up again.


	3. Chapter 3

Michael stood outside Jeremy’s room for a solid minute, rocking on his heels and toes, preparing himself to see Jeremy’s lifeless body again. It didn’t occur to him even slightly that he might have thoughts about the other person in the room until he had already walked in. Rich Goranski was there, heavily bandaged.

Rich Goranski, who had set fire to Jake Dillinger’s house. Rich Goranski, who introduced Jeremy to the squip. Rich Goranski, who now slept in a hospital bed, next to Jeremy’s, wrapped in gauze virtually head to toe. Frankly, with all that had happened since, he had forgotten about Rich, and Halloween, and all the godawful nonsense that had entailed. He felt a lot of things, and he’s pretty sure he emoted the majority of them. As the heavy door clicked shut behind him, Rich stirred.

When he opened his eyes, he looked straight at Michael.

“Mell.”

Michael felt an instinctive reaction well up, part of him wanting to run over and punch Rich while he was down and part of him wanting to run away. But after he ignored the instinct, there was another thought beneath it. He had had a squip too, and Michael should at least wait until he’s spoken before he reacts to the New Squipless Rich Goranski.

Jeremy had always denied that Rich went to Middleborough in freshman year, but Michael was nearly certain that for a week in grade nine, when they did a project together in science class, Michael and Rich could have been considered friends. They never talked before or after the project, but during that week, they spent hours together. It was on blood cells, but Rich, or Ricky at the time, would talk forever, reciting Wikipedia pages on all things from “List of Natural Satellites” to “Heredity”, admitting he didn’t always know what things meant but that he wanted to know everything. He had cute shaggy hair, thick rimmed glasses, and a heavy lisp. Ricky was excitable and a little bit rough, got nervous when he had to ask questions, but always did because he wanted to know the answers. He listened to Michael when he talked for hours too, even when the interests didn’t intersect. Then they stopped talking.

If that really was pre-squip Rich, and he was going to trust post-squip Jeremy, post-squip Rich deserved a chance.

Of course, while Michael thought about this, Rich was already continuing. In fact, he was apologising. He apologised for making gay jokes, making autistic jokes, making rude jokes in general. He apologised for ever laying a hand on Michael or Jeremy, and he said he felt horrible about a thousand and one other things Michael didn’t really remember him doing.

“It’s—I thought I had to. The squip, it messed with your head. Jeremy—the same thing happened. I’m so sorry. It’s also my fault he got one… I’ll have to apologise to him too.”

He talked for a long time with tears in his eyes, but eventually tapered out. He frowned, as if he wasn’t sure how to proceed. Michael nodded awkwardly, then they stood in silence. Well, Michael stood. Rich sat slightly propped in his bed. Jeremy lay unconscious. The silence was longer than it should have been, but in it Michael confirmed his decision.

“What’s your name?”

It was Rich’s turn to flash forty emotions. Then he scoffed, confused.

“You know my name.”

“We’ve never been properly introduced. I’m Michael. What’s your name?”

Rich hesitated for a moment, but then he smiled. It was crooked but genuine, with dimples and crescent eyes. There was no semblance of the sneer Michael was used to.

“Richard Goranski. Hi, Michael.”

“Hey, Rich.”


	4. Chapter 4

Michael wasn’t sure what to do, because normally when you introduce yourself to someone you’re supposed to shake their hand. Rich was all bandaged up, so he wasn’t particularly fond of doing that for fear of hurting him. Instead, he turned away from Rich and sat next to Jeremy’s bed.

He touched Jeremy’s hand, which was warm. He wasn’t entirely expecting that. He had also been trying unsuccessfully to ignore the beeping from the machines up until this point, but now he tuned in to try and decipher what they all meant. That was, he did that until Rich interrupted Michael’s thoughts.

“Did we just have a moment? I think we had a moment.”

Michael takes a deep breath, because as much as he’s willing to give this a shot, the middle of the night after his friend went into a coma is not the best time. Rich seems keen, though.

“I guess. Do you know anything about anyone else?”

“What do you mean?”

“The rest of the play’s cast. Everyone who was squipped.”

“The play cast was squipped!? Jeez, Jeremy, you cover ground fast.”

Rich shouted, indicating that he did not in fact know anything. Michael wondered what he meant by covering ground fast, and Rich explained that the squips had an underlying goal to spread, like some sort of organism. Michael sneered at that. It felt gross.

“That’s why you offered one to Jeremy?”

“Yeah, my squip told me to. I’ve given them to other people too. I hope whatever knocked Jeremy out got rid of them all.”

“Oh, if it worked, it totally got rid of them all. At least of the play cast.”

Then a question occurred to Michael. One he was somewhat scared to ask but had to know the answer to.

“How… how much power did the squip have over you?”

Rich raised an eyebrow.

“Explain.”

“Like… could it control you? Or did it just make suggestions? Um, not to be rude, but you were one of the hugest assholes I knew. And Jeremy kind of turned into the second hugest asshole within like, a day. How much of that was you?”

Rich sighed. He braced himself before answering, and Michael braced himself to hear it.

"I mean, I'll be the first to admit I can be a bit of an ass by myself, but that thing is on some next level shit."

According to Rich, the thing was ultra manipulative. He explained that it starts with suggestions and insults. It can alter your perception a bit and shock you if it sees fit. Then eventually it convinces you to up it's control, then it has a bit of actual power over you. It can use your body as it wishes and fighting back requires actual physical strength.

“But normally she doesn’t have to, because, I don’t know, you know you’re nothing without her, or something. So, like… you’re kind of in control, and you choose to do most of the things you do, but it’s like… not really you. It’s you after some whack psychological torture or something.”

Michael doesn’t know how to respond. He might be crying, a little, but Rich seems to be using every muscle in his face to avoid letting his eyes water so he doesn’t worry about how it looks. It's probably fair to tear up over mind control, right? He wipes his eyes as Rich continues.

“I don’t—I don’t know where Jeremy was. It took me like a year and a half before it seriously occurred to me that that thing was bad news. Just… the garbage she did felt important at the time.”

It felt weird to hear Rich so open and honest. Especially being open to Michael, since he was one of Rich’s—or Rich’s squip’s favourite targets. Most of their interactions had ranged from rude to actively hostile. It was so sharply contradictory to what he knew about him, and it felt like a twist in the opposite direction of his experience with Jeremy over the last few months.

He also felt a disgusting knot in his stomach from Rich’s story and still had no idea whatsoever how to reply. Luckily, Rich continued instead.

“Um, do you remember me from freshman year?”

Michael hesitates.

“Jeremy says you didn’t go to Middleborough in freshman year. I say we did a science project on blood cells together and you recited the names of all the moons in our solar system while chugging a whole bottle of orange juice on my bed.”

Rich grinned. He wiggled a bit, probably intending to gesture in some way that made him recoil before talking.

“Shit, dude! You’re the first person who’s actually answered yes to that question! Also, not to be a dick, but it’s the Solar System. Like, titular or whatever.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. That was a weird thing to hear you say. I’m kind of dealing with a thing, right now, trying to conjoin Ricky from Grade Nine Science and Rich the Teenage Bully in my head and it’s a little bit of an experience.”

Rich was taken aback for a moment, his grin wavered, but Michael didn’t mean actual harm by it. He also wasn’t sure what he said wrong, so he stayed quiet and went back to Jeremy’s machines.


	5. Chapter 5

Michael and Rich had a couple of on and off conversations through the night, in between Michael’s Jeremy Investigations where he would google the machines attached to him and ask nurses what was happening and research comas.

He didn’t recall ever going to sleep, but Michael woke up in a plastic chair, mighty uncomfortable, at 7:02am to the sound of his phone ringing. It was his mum. He tried to regain a modicum of his bearings before answering, although he was still working on that when he started to speak.

“Hi, Mum.”

“God, Michael, hi. You scared us. Are you still at the hospital?”

“Uh, yeah, Jeremy isn’t awake yet. He’s, uh, he’s in a coma. Sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

There was a silence on the other end for a second. Michael blinked. Jeremy was still unmoving, but Rich stirred. Michael moved into the hallway to keep from waking him up.

“Are you going to be able to go to school today? Your alarm went off a couple minutes ago.”

Michael loved his mothers. They let him have his days, he didn’t have to fight them. But both he and they knew how much school he had missed this year, and he knew that they wanted him there. He peeked through doorway at Jeremy before answering.

“Yeah, I’ll go.”

“Love you, Mikey.”

And so Michael had agreed to go to school. It was a Thursday morning, and he had not been home all night. Since time doesn't happen in hospitals, it was hard to be sure when he went to sleep, but he did remember seeing the clock at 4:20. He remembered this because even while his life is turning upside down for the second time since Junior year started, there was still room for his sleep depraved brain to alert him: Ha Ha Four Twenty. But, having seen Ha Ha Four Twenty meant that he had slept a maximum of two and a half hours, and was also wearing the same clothes he threw on after the play yesterday evening. Not as if he didn’t do that some mornings anyways. It’s not like anyone was around to notice.

Every action was a hassle; the drive to the school, opening his locker, any of it was frustrating. Michael was tired and had felt far too many emotions since September, let alone the last two days.

He stared blankly at the wall while the teacher lectured that morning, and he could barely tell you what class he was in. What he was aware of was that he had passed Mr. Reyes in the hall, meaning he had recovered at least enough to come to school. He also did not seem particularly squip-y, but despite everything that happened Michael was not one hundred percent certain what that entailed.

“Michael.”

Christine was also in class, and so was Brooke Lohst. He didn’t see Chloe Valentine anywhere, nor Jenna Rolan, but he also wasn’t certain whether either of them were even in this block. Jake Dillinger was definitely in this class though, and not present. After he had tallied up, he wasn’t sure he knew anyone else in the play’s cast. He didn’t even know half the people he was thinking about now, but they were just the ones actively perusing Jeremy in their Apocalypse of the Damned-esque Squip Zombie Battle backstage. He wondered if they were in the hospital like Jeremy, or if they were maybe just recovering at home. Or maybe just skipping. Michael wanted to be skipping, and he didn’t even fall apart yesterday. Physically.

“Michael. How many times have I told you? Headphones off in class, please.”

“Right. Sorry, ma’am.”

His headphones stay off for two minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> casually projects getting trouble in class for wearing headphones even when they aren't playing any music onto fictional characters


	6. Chapter 6

At lunch, Michael sat where he always sat. He sat where he and Jeremy used to hang out, with his headphones on, and rocking side to side while his music played and counting ceiling tiles. He didn’t pack a lunch, and he didn’t particularly feel like eating, so he just picked at a bag of chips he grabbed from a vending machine while his thoughts slowly shifted away from the greying polystyrene tiles and towards Jeremy Heere.

It was weird, because he hadn’t thought about Jeremy for a little while. He was _finally_ getting used to the idea that they weren’t friends anymore and had resigned himself to thinking about classic science fiction and TV fantasy during lunch breaks. Sometimes he would even do homework or hang out in Mr. Powell’s biology classroom and hold Monty, the snake. (Monty wasn’t a python. He was a corn snake.)

But now, because Jeremy had established a trend of taking over Michael’s brain every time he got vaguely comfortable without him, he was thinking about him again. And feeling like they could be friends, again. And feeling like making a choice to see him again might not be a bad idea, again.

He was also thinking about Goddamned Richard Goranski, who may or may not have actually been a pretty okay person who likes science and computers and video games. He may be a person who doesn’t, in fact, seek pleasure by scaring other people and wrecking their shit and might have just been doing what he was told by an evil mastermind computer in his brain. Just like Jeremy.

It was a weird feeling to take in, and Michael was still muddling through it, but he was confident he was going to give Rich a chance anyways, if for no other reason than he wasn’t willing to not check on Jeremy just because Rich was there too.

He also wondered what Jeremy would do in this situation. Back in September, before the fateful trip to Menlo Park Mall, Michael had regularly asked himself what Jeremy would do in these sorts of situations. (Or any sort of situations. Second opinions are useful when you just don’t know how people work.) Jeremy tended to be a bit of a nervous grouch, and he was less forgiving than Michael by nature. Michael didn’t like to be mad at people, even people he doesn’t like, so letting them do whatever they want comes easy to Michael, even if it bothers him.

If it bothers you, you’re still mad. That’s what Jeremy used to say. Michael disagreed, but he didn’t know how to vocalise it. Jeremy always said this unfair forgiveness was going to get him in trouble. 

What did Jeremy know, though? He should be glad that Michael didn’t listen, giving Jeremy a hundred and first chance. Jeremy said a lot of things in his life. Only some of them made sense.

Suddenly, Christine was sitting across from him at the lunch table. He wasn’t sure how long she’d been there, but if it had been a long time he assumed she would have spoken by now, since she was looking right at him, nervously. He stopped rocking.

“Hi.”

She spoke softer than he was used to. He didn’t have a lot of interactions with Christine, though, so maybe she talked like that sometimes. Either way, he said hello back. She gestured from her ear to the back of her head. Michael knew what it meant, he’d seen it a million times in a thousand variations, but he wasn’t taking his headphones off. Frankly, he was getting tired of people telling him to. Eventually Christine shifted awkwardly but continued regardless.

“You’re Michael, right? I’m Christine.”

“I know.”

“Right. Um, you’re Jeremy’s friend, right? And you were there last night? With the… ecstasy?”

She meant the play fiasco. He was pretty sure she knew this, and was using code words, or something.

“I think so. To the friend thing, I mean. I was there last night.”

“Do you know if Jeremy is okay? I’ve been able to get hold of everyone else, but I still haven’t heard back from Jeremy.”

“He’s in a coma in the ICU. There’s a max of two visitors at a time and a couple hours in the afternoon that they don’t let people in, but you’re allowed to visit, I think.”

“What hospital?”

Christine looked freaked out, but Michael didn’t know how to make himself feel better about it, let alone her, so he just answered her question.

“The one closest to here. By Menlo Park. Beth Israel?”

She nodded.

“Right. Of course.”

She laughs nervously, probably thinking about the fact a whole acting class collapsed and was ushered to the hospital. There’s no reasonable explanation for that.

“The squip’s gone, right?”

Michael worked up the nerve to ask this, since he couldn’t ask Jeremy, who was unconscious, or Rich, who’s squip had been gone since Halloween, or the doctors who didn’t know what a squip was. Christine overemphasised that the answer was yes by explaining what a horrible experience it was and that she had never felt anything like it in her life.

Michael didn’t have anything more to say, so he let her ramble. Eventually, she apologised for getting worked up, and later for getting off topic, but Michael didn’t see the problem in either. She liked to talk, and she was nice, and a bit weird. From what Michael had seen, she was perfect for the Jeremy he knew. Jeremy, who, friendship with Michael re-established or not, still had a major crush on her.

And Michael had conformation that the squips were out of the picture. Now Jeremy just had to wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> monty was the name of the snake that belonged to my grade 8 science teacher (who was also a higher grade bio teacher). he wasn't named after monty python though, which is what i had first guessed because puns, but in fact he was named after romeo (as in montague) from romeo and juliet. his previous snake had been named julia. apparently she liked to be Extremely subtle with the literary references


	7. Chapter 7

“I’m going back to the hospital.”

Michael had come home from school in a daze, showered, changed his clothes, eaten three grapes, and made this decision. He announces this to his mama, who was the only other person home at the time. He also stared blankly at the corner of the room, feeling exhausted.

She sternly suggested he take a nap first, which he didn’t, but the only part of his evening his mother downright refused to accept was his poor judgement of what constituted a meal. After she forced him to microwave a prepackaged lasagne, he had some semblance of energy (an unexpected but appreciated side effect of nutrients) but was still running on pretty much no sleep. And driving a car.

When he arrived at the hospital again, the weird reality warping aura that surrounds all hospitals came back within an instant. It felt wrong and weird, but that was okay, he rationalised, because being in a hospital is wrong and weird. No one should be there unless something wrong or weird has happened.

Despite a day having passed, Jeremy’s room looked nearly the same as it had that morning. Michael had seen Jeremy’s dad arriving at the hospital when Michael left this morning, but he wasn’t around now. The only difference was a couple of things left by Jeremy’s bed, some yellow flowers on his bedside table along with a note written on loose-leaf paper. Also, the curtain was drawn between Jeremy’s bed and Rich’s. He could see a nurse’s feet moving around the room on the other side.

Nurses had been in and out of the room a bunch, and it made sense seeing as they were in the ICU. As Michael walked into the room, it occurred to him that he didn’t know what he was planning to do once he got here, so he found himself looking over Jeremy again.

The first thing that stood out to him was that they had taken him off the ventilator. Michael could feel this realisation tight in his chest and ringing in his ears, and it made his head spin because it meant that since this morning, Jeremy had started breathing on his own. And _that_ meant Jeremy was getting better, probably, assuming comas could be intuitively analysed. If he just kept waiting, Jeremy might just wake up.

Sadly, nothing else seemed to point toward Jeremy’s improvement when he investigated. He decided to wait for whoever was with Rich to leave, and then ask them, but in the meantime, he sat down in the plastic chair and investigated Jeremy’s gifts.

The note was from Jeremy’s dad, but the second Michael started reading, a knot in his stomach told him he shouldn’t. It felt personal. The flowers had a note in them too, which Michael peeked at, because flower notes were probably less private. Maybe? They were from Christine.

Hey, Jeremy! These flowers are a type of sunflower called Black-Eyed Susans.  
They represent encouragement, and yellow flowers in general sort of mean friendship.  
They aren’t real, but that’s ’cuz it’s November. Hope you can forgive me :9  
-Christine C.

Michael smiled, because it read in Christine’s voice. Her normal, peppy and loud one, not the quiet and nervous one Michael heard at lunch. She also dotted her I's with big circles instead of dots, and it seemed very much like a Christine thing to do. Then he tucked the note back into the flowers and wondered if he should bring Jeremy a present too, because that was a thing people apparently did in real life, and not only on TV.

It wasn't until he had settled into playing on his phone that the curtains were opened and the nurse who had introduced himself as Kalum the night prior appeared. He finished talking to Rich, which Michael couldn’t hear properly over his music, then Michael pounced. He asked about Jeremy’s condition.

Michael should probably stop expecting actual answers from the nurses, because the longer he’s here the more he realises that no one knows anything about anything.

Kalum didn’t know any answers, since they didn’t know what had caused him to collapse, let alone why he was comatose. This was frustrating, because Michael was sure that saying he ate a supercomputer wouldn’t be taken seriously. Kalum then reiterated that a whole drama class had collapsed, and Jeremy was the only one still unconscious, so it was probably some sort of environmental concern. The thing was, Michael had heard this already, as well as experienced it firsthand. Or, well, witnessed it. He thanked Kalum for his time because that’s what he was supposed to do, not because it was worth his while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it kind of occurred to me today that rich probably shouldn't be in the icu since he's been in the hospital for like nearly a month, but based on my googling and also intuition jeremy should almost certainly be in the icu, since he Just went into a coma
> 
> i also don't want nor know how to write jeremy's dad into this story so he's just. not there. i kinda vaguely give garbage excuses here and a bit later but like. i just don't want him there. sorry mr heere
> 
> now that i've pointed out to you, my readers, these flaws in my writing, i'm going to beg you to forget them. i'm literally just not creative enough to come up with a good reason for either of these things, so just ignore it i guess. suspension of disbelief. or better yet, ignore me. come up with your own reasons. death of the author or whatever! fuck me and my (lack of) opinions
> 
> (i'm not 100% that that's what death of the author is but hey, death of the author lmao)


	8. Chapter 8

When Michael turned back into the room, he noticed Rich looked different. The gauze all over him was shifted slightly, it had probably been changed. His hair was also different, but Michael couldn’t pin how. It was already far from what Michael was used to, since he normally wore it short and gelled up in the front. Now it was growing out, and Rich found himself wearing shaggy bangs in front of his eyes. He was also, currently, falling asleep.

Michael didn’t have much to do in the hospital room, but he didn’t feel right leaving it, so he just absentmindedly alternated between playing on his phone and doing homework. Sometimes he paces and sometimes he sat in the uncomfortable plastic chair, and sometimes, he lay on the floor. For a change of scene, he supposed.

Michael was amazed by how easily he could forget the context of his own situation once he was involved enough in what he was doing. Of course, every time he even slightly resurfaced, he was flooded with anxiety and uncertainty and stress and other emotions. But if he did sudoku with maximum focus, he could forfeit some of those emotions for a little while.

He was lying on the floor contemplating his maths homework with semi-successful, almost maximum focus when Rich spoke up.

“Hey, you’re back.”

“Yep.”

Rich’s voice was quiet and slow. Drowsy, perhaps. It had been a few hours since Michael arrived, but Rich had been sleeping most of that time, so he mustn’t have noticed him hanging around. Now he was leaning against the bedframe, support from an unburnt right wrist. He held himself awkwardly as to not press against wounds that were still healing.

“What’s up?”

Rich stared at him sleepily, looking less confident the longer Michael didn’t engage. Finally, the song ended. He flicked the headphones off his ears.

“Homework. Your hair is different.”

“Yeah, the doctors like to look at my gross arms and stuff at least once a day. They get intimate with a sponge every once in a while, it’s like a really cheap spa or some shit. Got my hair washed today.”

He laughed, but when Michael finally looked up, his face didn’t match. Michael’s best guess was discomfort. If he was right, he would have to agree, because he wouldn’t like a stranger in control of his cleanliness routine either. On this note, Michael decided to indulge in what some folks may call small talk.

“Are your arms that gross?”

Well, it might have been small talk. He wasn’t sure, but it was an attempt.

“Yeah, they’re nasty. I was covered in all sorts of second and third-degree burns. Most of the worst stuff is gone now, but I’m—I think I’m gonna look pretty worse for wear when I’m out of here.”

“I think burn scars look cool.”

Rich raised his eyebrows.

“You’re just saying that.”

“Why do people always say that? What’s ‘just’ about it? I’m saying I think burn scars look cool.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. They make skin go all red and rough. It feels neat too. My uncle has this cool acid burn across his chest—not, like, that the fact he’s burnt is cool, but it look’s interesting. A lot more textured than normal skin.”

“Yeah, but it’s weird, y’know?”

Michael scoffs.

“You sound like Jeremy. What sucks so much about being weird? Weird is rad.”

Rich smiled. He didn’t look happy, per se, more like he was intrigued. He also shrugged off the question.

“Did you know fourth degree burns exist? I learnt that recently.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s when the burn gets to muscle and tendons and shit. It probably sucks like hell.”

Michael nodded thoughtfully at this, then went back to his homework. He’d made it about thirty seconds before Rich spoke up again.

“Hey, if you hate me or whatever I’m willing to shut up and leave you alone. You just have to say so.”

This caught him off guard. He had no idea when or how he had provided Rich with the basis that he _hated_ him, so he put his pencil down and sat up to look at Rich’s face, but it didn’t help. He was just staring at Michael from his half-upright position in bed. Michael was incredulous. His eyebrows knitted, and his noes wrinkled as he tried to process the statement.

“I have no idea why you’re saying that.”

Rich was taken aback my Michael’s answer. Michael didn’t understand why that reaction was warranted either, but that’s apparently how this conversation was going to play out. Sometimes Michael felt like he spent more of his life confused and flabbergasted than anything else. Like every single person other than himself has some sixth sense or something, and they all try to have half of every conversation via some secret brain code Michael can’t access.

“Okay, I don’t know what you don’t know. You sure don’t seem like you like me much.”

“I don’t _not_ like you.”

“Oh, wow. Reassuring. Point still stands.”

“Okay, sure, I’ll let you know if I hate you? I still don’t get why we’re having this conversation.”

Rich just shrugged again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i felt kind of silly excited when i heard loser/geek/whatever the other day for a million reasons, one being that bmc is a major special interest of mine, but also there was a part of me that felt so Valid for having written michael saying "weird is rad" literally hours before hearing a song in which jeremy says "michael thinks that weird is rad". its a basic and normal sentence but having used the exact wording made me laugh.
> 
> anyways, i haven't seen the new show on account of living nowhere near new york and not having a thousand dollars to spend willy nilly, but from the little bits and pieces i've heard about and seen i could yell for hours about the difference in how will roland's and will connolly's jeremys are portrayed. i love both


	9. Chapter 9

Later that evening, Michael made himself as comfortable as possible on the plastic chairs next to Jeremy’s bed. Since there were two of them, he tucked his legs through the arm rests on one and stretched out. He should have realised that by doing this he was basically guaranteeing sleeping there again, but he did not, in fact, make this connection.

He had been stuck on what Rich had said for about half an hour when he lay down. He’d been asked before why he didn’t like certain people, and he never had a good answer, mostly because he didn’t not like them. Michael wasn’t good at talking. He didn’t always understand secret codes like Body Language and Tone of Voice, and this apparently translated to I Hate You in Normal Person.

He figured Rich had at least some reason to think Michael hated him, since up until two days ago Michael and Rich had never interacted positively. It frustrated him, though, that after trying very hard to be friendly with Rich now, he still thought Michael didn’t like him.

Maybe Rich was more like Jeremy than Michael thought initially. Jeremy always assumed other people hated him a lot more than they did, that’s why it took him so long to ever talk to Christine. It’s also probably why he was so keen on getting a squip. Maybe Rich got a squip for the same reason. Or maybe he just felt bad for his I’m King of Middleborough and Every Weirdo in Junior Year will Bow to Me schtick and figured Michael would hold some secret grudge.

He also didn’t know what Rich planned to do about it, because it’s not like he could leave. He was just as stuck in this room as Jeremy, and Michael had already established that he wasn’t going to leave just because Rich was there. Plus, Michael sort of liked the company. If Rich weren’t there, it’d just be him and Jeremy, and Michael might end up spiraling a bit.

He decided he’d keep up trying to be friendly.

Then he fell asleep.


	10. Chapter 10

Michael woke up with a start. There was a very loud beeping. It was on a constant interval, and Michael could neither figure out what it was or how to make it stop without getting up. When he opened his eyes, he discovered that he was in the hospital again. Or, still, rather.

“Ow, fuck. Shit.”

Rich cursed from across the room. He peeked across Jeremy’s bed to see what was happening.

Michael saw Rich sit back, implying he was leaning forward a moment before. He carefully investigated the back of his arm.

“You good?”

He clearly startled Rich, as indicated by Rich nearly launched himself into the air.

“Mhm, yeah. I, like, jolted awake. Slammed my arm into the thing, which hurt very much thank you for asking, and now the IV thing is beeping. Or the IV was beeping before, then I woke up. Not sure. Sorry if I woke you.”

“It’s whatever. I’m the one choosing to sleep on plastic chairs instead of in my own bed.”

The nurse came and went quickly, fixing the IV and making small talk with Rich about how finicky the machines were. She also gave Rich a paper cup full of pills and a glass of water, which he threw down in a single gulp. The nurse was named Mary. She had answered one of Michael’s first Jeremy Questionnaire Lightning Rounds. Mary smiled at Michael as she walked out. After she left, Rich slumped back into his bed and spoke.

“What time is it?”

“Hell if I know. One sec.”

Michael rummaged through his pockets and found his phone, which was far too bright for the dimly lit (but never completely dark) hospital room.

“It’s two forty-seven.”

“Jesus.”

“Can’t you check yourself?”

“Oh, phone's here, it’s just hard to use because having my elbows bent much means hellfire burning flesh when I unbend them.”

“Mm. Sounds bad. Don’t bend your elbows?”

“Can’t read that far in front of me.”

He raises his arm, mimicking holding his phone half a metre ahead, and waves up and down for emphasis. Michael frowns.

“I get not wearing contacts in the hospital, but what about glasses?”

“First of all, when have you ever seen me wear glasses?”

“Grade nine. Also, you said you can’t see, and I have basic intuition.”

“Right, that’s fair. Second, they’re in that bag that I cannot, in fact, reach by myself. Third, my face is also burnt.”

Michael sits up with a groan. Wow, that chair was not comfortable. He picked up his glasses off the floor and put them onto his face, making his way over to the grey knapsack leant against the far corner of the room.

“Why is this so far away from you, anyways?”

“I don’t know, it’s just where my dad or whoever put it.”

“When?”

It hadn’t occurred to Michael before now, but he had never seen anyone visit Rich. Jeremy’s dad had popped in and out a couple of times but seemed overwhelmed by trying to not get fired. Turns out, he was getting scary close to that before Michael kicked his ass into gear. Well, Jeremy helped, but he helped by rebelling in unhealthy, squip-induced ways. Either way, the two of them had sent him back into the workforce that he was hanging onto by threads.

Plus, he probably had his own ways of coping with his son being in a coma. To Michael it meant being able to see him always, be aware of his condition, but he would understand if to Mr. Heere it meant not being in the hospital room quite as much as he maybe should have been. It made sense if his response to his wife leaving was any indication. But either way, seeing Jeremy like this was tough.

But although Mr. Heere and Michael were both present a fair amount (Michael maybe a little more than fair), and Christine had visited earlier today, Michael hadn’t seen anyone around for Rich since he got here. Maybe his dad came during the day, or something, while Michael was at school. There weren’t gifts like Jeremy’s on his side of the room either.

Rich shrugged. Michael placed the bag between Rich’s legs, so he could dig through it. It also occurred to him he’d totalled probably sixteen hours here and had yet to cross to this side of the room, despite having paced back and forth on Jeremy’s side for at least three hours of it. Never over here. He wasn’t sure if it was completely by accident, but was glad that if it wasn’t, he was getting over himself now. If his mum could hear his thoughts she would have had a field day with the analysis of the subconscious intentions of his actions.

“Thanks. Wanna witness something no one’s seen before?”

Michael nods, and Rich puts his glasses on. The frames were a mahogany sort of shade, and the lenses were thick and glinted blue when they reflected the lamplight.

Rich struck a pose sarcastically, then moved to take them off again. He tossed them onto the bedside table, but at least they were within his reach now. Michael moved to pick them up and take a closer look.

“What’s your prescription? These are fucking thick lenses.”

He lifts his own glasses onto his head and puts them on to explore further, and they warped his vision so sickeningly he leant his head back and cursed before he was ever able to parse anything. Once he let his eyes settle, if he closed his left one, things were almost okay. As long as he didn’t move his head.

“-3.75 in my right eye and -6.0 in my left. I got shit vision, dude.”

“Right, yeah. Wow. Why aren’t you wearing these, like, right now?”

“You’re wearing them.”

“I meant—"

“No, I know what you mean. I don’t know, they make me look stupid.”

“Nah, you looked cute.”

Rich’s face flashed something akin to a frown for a fraction of a second, but quickly returned to neutral. His ears went pink.

“You’re just saying that. Glasses make my face look weird.”

“Yes, I’m saying it.”

“What?”

“‘You’re just saying that.’”

He made overexaggerated air quotes as he repeated the phrase. He felt a little silly, but his Normal-People-to-Michael-Words Translator (Jeremy) had been out of commission for a while now, so deciphering expressions was a manual task. It obviously meant something other than that he had spoken, because of course he had.

“People say that as if it’s gonna change anything.”

“Do you not—? I don't know, like, I figure you’re just saying that ’cause it’ll make me feel better or whatever. Or something.”

There was a lot of uncertainty in his statement. Three different parts, if Michael counted correctly.

“I didn’t actually know you were upset.”

“Wow, okay, cool, nevermind. We’re on entirely different pages here. Don’t worry about it.”

“Sorry.”

Once again, Michael felt a little lost. Rich seemed antsy, so Michael just restarted. He sat down on the end of Rich’s bed and pulled his own glasses off the top of his head, still wearing Rich’s. He tossed his own over.

“My prescription is like a hundred times less nearsighted with a thousand times more astigmatism. Put those on. Experience some wack sight.”

Rich shifted gears easily, wanting to avoid whatever half-conversation had sprouted just as much as Michael. He picked up his glasses and raised his eyebrows like he wasn’t sure what he was seeing.

“Jesus, I was expecting them to do nothing, but I think they actually made things worse.”

“That’d be the astigmatism. Shit all at any distance.”

Michael grinned proudly. It was mostly to mock celebrate their equally shitty vision, but part of it was a pride he felt for making Rich seem comfortable again. On that note, Rich was grabbing his phone and opened it to the camera, holding it at arm’s length like he had joked about earlier. He closed his left eye to get a modicum of focused vision and started grinning.

“What the hell! I look even goofier in these! I want mine back!”

Michael was pretty sure he was joking now. His smile didn't fade as they traded back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a really long chapter by my standards, but it’s actually only a little over a thousand words. shows how little i actually write
> 
> here’s to recovering from old self hatred by projecting the phase where you refused to wear your much-needed glasses onto fictional characters in the form of goofy hijinks. it’s good for the soul. also, if you don’t have astigmatism, i task you now with finding someone with moderate astigmatism and trying on their glasses. you can be super nearsighted, and it’ll still Wreck your vision in every way.
> 
> i didn’t know why people said “you’re just saying that” until i was seventeen. i probably asked about a hundred times in my life, but it's one of those phrases that because of the context people say it in, they never want to say what it means, i guess. i owe a life debt to the person who finely explained it to me


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they talk abt drugs + medication a lil in this chapter, just in case that concerns you. it's not any more explicit than in the show though

“Mm… Mary drugged me. I trusted her.”

Michael had resettled on his plastic chairs when Rich yawned dramatically. He had been talking somewhat _at_ Michael instead of _to_ him about the woes of being in the hospital for a month, fact mostly being that he was bored. Apparently, Rich liked to run. Running was a sport, if you could even call it that, that Michael couldn’t even fathom enjoying. It was exercise in it’s purest, most sickening form, and Rich was complaining that he couldn’t do it. Michael had thrown up in gym class before, thanks to running.

“You drugged yourself. You took like twenty pills half an hour ago.”

“It was only seven. But like, they keep— I don’t know. They give me this one painkiller, but only _sometimes_ , that makes me fucking hazy as shit. I could feel it before but it’s actually getting to me now.”

“Dude, you can go to sleep if you want. It’s nearly three thirty.”

“Nah, I just feel all floaty and weird right now. I can almost guarantee that I will take you up on that offer in like ten minutes though.”

“Sounds nice, actually.”

“Right, I forgot you’re a fucking stoner.”

Rich joked, and Michael found himself overanalysing it. It was a weird joke, since he’d seen Rich high before. He smoked in the lot behind the school like plenty of students, and there was virtually no way that with the stories people told about parties that Rich didn’t go all out. He voiced his confusion.

“Oh, that was fake as hell. The squip—she would like, filter air or some shit. The things couldn’t handle intoxication, so she’d help you act like you’re fucked out of your mind or whatever without actually doing anything. Also, if you’re trusting what she’s saying—which I am not, by the way, but still—there’s a huge difference between getting high at a party versus alone.”

This caught Michael’s attention. These were the kind of rules that he never understood nor was he ever destined to understand, because they made no sense. It did, though, explain why he was dubbed a stoner for smoking weed a couple times a week in his basement when he knew of people high at parties or with friends just as often without evoking commentary from the entire social hierarchy of the school. The rule didn’t make sense, but at least there was one that he was breaking, he figured. It wasn’t just because people were looking for reasons to think he was weird.

It also reminded him of Jeremy, because at Halloween his squip had been off. Jeremy seemed a little drunk, and he wondered if he had done that on purpose. Was he trying to stop the squip from working? That didn’t make sense, though, because he lashed out about not wanting to get rid of it. Didn’t he? Maybe he didn’t know the squip would turn off? Why didn’t the squip stop him? Could it, yet? He wasn’t sure. Also, Jeremy didn’t drink, so that was extra weird. Michael was getting fed up with thinking about Halloween. Nothing made sense about what happened that night, and it was fuzzy and awful in his memory anyways.

Michael kept finding himself getting frustrated and upset with Jeremy about the shit he did, even though part of Michael was ready to put all it in the past, and the rest of him already had. Seeing your friend on what feels like the cusp of death makes it a little bit easier to forgive him. It also wasn’t as if he wasn’t prepared to ignore everything at the drop of a hat if Jeremy had walked up to him at some point and said, “let’s be friends again”. So why was he still so capable of being mad about it? Michael blamed the fact he still had so many unanswered questions. It was a lot easier than holding Jeremy responsible for his actions.

Fuck, he wanted Jeremy to wake up soon. He wanted to ask questions and talk about video games and smoke weed and ignore schoolwork and listen to Jeremy whine about Christine and the definition of Being Cool. He wanted to sit upside down on Jeremy’s bed reciting the lyrics of shitty folk punk music while Jeremy aggressively strummed a C chord on his mum’s old guitar.

Instead, he just stared at Jeremy, who breathed in response. The heart monitor jumped only about once a second, but a new jump always came. Jeremy was alive, by whatever standard hospitals have for aliveness. Also, his head was leaning to the right now. Michael wasn’t sure when that happened.

“Oi. Hey.”

Rich clapped his hands together and waved in Michael’s direction. Michael looked back at him. He offered a smile, but it didn’t have sincerity behind it. He was busy getting stuck in his head.

“I’m trying to take your word that you don’t mind me talking to you, but you sure make it hard to believe.”

“Sorry. I am listening.”

“You’re staring at Jeremy.”

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t hear with my eyes.”

Rich groans, but it seems playful. Michael makes a mental note to ask Jeremy why people think he doesn’t like them, because he’s pretty sure asking Rich would be weird. Maybe Michael just has a bad face? He must admit though, this one time and this time only Rich was justified in questioning his sincerity. Michael had stopped listening.


	12. Chapter 12

After being criticized Michael tried extra hard to maintain a conversation with Rich in a timely fashion, but it only lasted for maybe five minutes before Rich was the one who was fading out. Michael had been warned.

He kind of wished he could also get high and drift off, but he also fucking knew better than to try smoking while as stressed out as he was lately. He also wanted to be in the hospital a lot more than he wanted to be high and could not do both. Why was Rich given meds in the middle of the night, anyways? There must be a better time for that. Maybe they wanted Rich asleep on a normal schedule, something Michael was not going to get.

He was glad he got some sleep in before his midnight conversation, because he felt like he wasn’t going to fall back asleep anytime soon now that he wasn’t physically falling apart at the seams. He couldn’t help but think about life, and Jeremy. Life with Jeremy, life without Jeremy, hospitals, Rich, Christine, Jeremy’s dad, his mums, Jeremy’s mum, the concept of going to school again. The concept of going to school with Jeremy again.

Michael was still lying on the plastic chairs he’d made his home since Wednesday night, picking at the nail polish on his fingers. It was getting old, his nails getting too long for comfort and the polish starting to chip away even without Michael’s help. He tried to focus on rubbing the smooth, glossy surfaces still present, but every time his attention drifted he was scratching it off again like it was the end of the world.

He was also switching between staring at the ceiling and at Jeremy. Michael was fascinated by watching Jeremy, because he looked so normal. If he ignored the room and the machines and Rich, it just seemed like he was sleeping. Not like he would admit it, it’d freak Jeremy out, but Michael had watched Jeremy sleep before. They’d slept over together a million times in twelve years, and Jeremy _always_ fell asleep first. It was a fact of life.

In the bed, with his hair all shaggy across his face and breathing through his mouth, splayed beneath the blue and green knitted quilt that Mr. Heere must have taken from his bed at home, he looked like he was sleeping. In a way, Michael figured, he was. Sure, he couldn’t wake him up, but he was sleeping. And Michael was sleeping over. On the floor, with their beanbag chairs pushed together to make some semblance of a mattress for him to sprawl across. He would ask for the soft brown blanket that he always asked to use because it was soft and heavy and warm. Or on a plastic chair in a hospital room with his arms pulled into his sweater and his shoes kicked off. That worked too.

Michael got up again and walked into the middle of the room, between Jeremy and Rich. Frankly, Rich looked like more harm had come to him than that had come to Jeremy, yet he got to be awake sometimes. Why wasn’t Jeremy awake sometimes? It felt unfair. It could have been Rich, or any of the other drama students, but why did Jeremy have to be the one who wasn’t waking up? He cared about Jeremy’s new friends’ safety to some extent, but he cared about Jeremy. He knew Jeremy, and Jeremy knew him. Michael’s friendship with Jeremy was forged by knowing each other and only each other for twelve years. That couldn’t be duplicated. It was also rude of the world to make him think that, he figured, because it made him feel gross, like he was wishing harm on others. He didn’t want to be wishing harm on others.

He had hope, though. Michael was hesitant to use the word “reassured”, but Rich had reassured him that he had been in a coma for nearly a week after the fire, probably because of the squip. The hospital staff had chalked it up to being related to the fire, and shock, and third-degree burns, but Rich explained that waking up felt like his brain had been rewired. Maybe Jeremy just needed time to rewire his brain back into his own. He didn’t feel reassured though. He didn’t like the idea of his best friend being in a coma for a week. Comas were dangerous.

He climbs over the foot end of Jeremy’s bed and sits cross-legged, facing him head on. The bed was propped up ever so slightly, so Michael was able to see his face without looking up and over him. He was also careful not to sit on Jeremy’s feet.

“You’re not allowed to die, you know.”

He didn’t really mean to talk, but it felt nice making the words. He decided to continue.

“You still owe me seven bucks, and I wanna play Apocalypse of the Damned on something other than my shitty laptop, so wake up soon, okay? We haven’t had a proper conversation since September and I’m getting pretty sick of your horseshit.”

He paused where Jeremy should answer, wondering if he could hear him. That was a thing, sometimes, wasn’t it?

“Also, you’re my best friend and I miss you a lot.”

His voice caught, a bit, but he’s smiling. Jeremy keeps sleeping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my router hates ao3. i have had to turn it off and on again before uploading a chapter probably six times


	13. Chapter 13

“Hey, lover boy, your phone is buzzing.”

“Mm?”

Michael wakes up to the sound of Rich’s voice. The hospital lights are back on full blast glaring whiteness instead of a not-quite-dark-enough-to-feel-like-night dim yellow, implying that it’s morning. Real morning, not the ante meridiem hours of the night. He’s lying next to Jeremy, wedged into his side awkwardly but comfortably, sharing his twin sized hospital bed. And his phone is buzzing. At least he’d had the foresight to turn the sound off this time. He sits up and answers it.

“Hi, Mama.”

He feels a sense of déjà vu. Is it still déjà vu if you’ve definitely done it before, and it’s not just your brain playing tricks?

“Hey, Mikey. Just checking in. How’s Jeremy?”

“Same as before.”

“Did you sleep at all last night?”

“Some, yeah.”

“And you’re going to school?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“Good for you, Mikey. Jer will be alright without you for a few hours.”

He nods, which his mother can’t see, but she somehow knew he had done it because she responded.

“Right on. See you tonight?”

“See you.”

He checks the time and tucks his phone in his pocket. He looks around the room for where he left his shoes and glasses while he rubs the sleep from his eyes, both literally and figuratively.

“You leaving?”

Rich spoke up once his call ended. He hadn’t been awake the morning prior but had otherwise proven to be a light sleeper. Michael wondered if the vibrate on his phone was loud enough to have woken Rich up or if he had been up already, because that seemed like some impressive hearing to Michael.

“School.”

Rich nodded, then winked playfully.

“I’ll keep an eye on your boyfriend for you.”

“Jeremy likes girls.”

He didn’t mean to sound quite so frustrated by his own statement, and it also wasn’t the response Michael would have placed at top priority, normally, but apparently it was where his mouth was going to go. Weird thing was, Rich had called Jeremy his boyfriend a million times before. There was a vitriol behind it, though, a snide remark from a bully looking to gain ground in whatever way possible. It was friendly this time, a sincere gesture. Even if he meant it, though, he and Jeremy weren’t boyfriends.

As he walked out of the room, Rich grabbed his attention one more time.

“Hey, Mell?”

“Yeah?”

“Doesn’t mean he doesn’t like boys.”


	14. Chapter 14

Michael kept telling himself that as long as Jeremy wasn’t getting worse, he could manage going to school. The “himself” he was telling kept talking back, though, announcing that if he were at school he couldn’t tell if Jeremy was getting worse. A third, unrelated partition of himself wanted to give up, go home, and forget that other people existed, Jeremy included. Somehow, the first part was winning.

He sat through class blankly for the second day in a row, but this time he dedicated enough focus to copy what the teacher wrote down. If you asked him what any of it meant, he hadn’t a clue, but at least it was there for when he wanted to go figure it out. Plus, if he was focusing on writing, he could kind of partially ignore the conversation his brain was having with itself.

Michael was also taking notes so that he could give them to Jeremy later. He had only been out for a couple of days, but in general Jeremy didn’t take notes in class anymore. Michael would bet that that was thanks to him having a supercomputer in his brain, but it also meant he may have ignored the entire first half of junior year. Jeremy was smart, but not smart enough to drift through classes the way he was. Especially math. So, Project: Notes for Jeremy was in action.

Michael’s schedule was quite different from Jeremy’s, since he prioritised English and writing classes which Michael avoided like the plague. Michael wrote a lot better than he could speak, but that didn’t make it enjoyable. He was still going to do his best to salvage as many useful notes as possible so that Jeremy wouldn’t fail. As such, at lunch he sat at his and Jeremy’s table again, looking through his overflowing Pre-Calculus binder and picking at the ham sandwich he bought from concession. It made him think of the argument he would have with Jeremy at the start of every year.

Michael would get binders and a load of loose-leaf paper, whereas Jeremy would buy notebooks. Jeremy would argue that Michael would lose material if it wasn’t all together, and Michael would argue that Jeremy wasn’t going to be able to find anything if it was all in one book. Michael would lose pages occasionally, and Jeremy was god-awful at finding relevant notes. Frankly, they were both right in the long run. It didn’t stop the conversation from happening every September, though.

As it turned out, if he actually put the notes _in_ the binder, through the holes, he was a lot less likely to lose pages than if he tucked them away in the plastic pockets until an unspecified later date when he would organise. He’d been doing that this term, and it payed off, since he had all his math notes, and as a bonus the binder looked all pretty and sorted and formal. (Or as formal as it could look with video game and band stickers plastered on the front. Michael had a habit of sticking them on anything.) This lead Michael to believe that he may have won the twelve-year fight, but he had no doubt that Jeremy could come up with another reason notebooks are better.

In class that afternoon, Michael was hit with a piece of paper. This was obviously not the first time in his life that this had happened, and he normally wouldn’t have even looked up, except in this case it was odd. It stood out to Michael, because the person who was normally hitting him with balls of paper was a) not in Physics b) in the hospital c) no longer an asshole. So he was a little curious. When he turned around, he couldn’t pin anyone immediately, but then Brooke Lohst waved at him.

So it wasn’t the first time he was hit with a ball of paper, but it was the first time that Jeremy’s Ex-Girlfriend Brooke Lohst was the culprit. It was also the first time the culprit admitted themselves with a shy smile instead of a sneer. Michael just stared at her, confused, and she pointed at the ground in response. Michael raised an eyebrow. She opened and closed her palms against each other, like opening a book. Michael finally felt a lightbulb go off in his head and picked up the ball.

Can you explain stuff?  
484 412 2945

Michael pulled out his phone and texts the number on the paper. Unsurprisingly it’s Brooke, and she clarifies what she means for him. Brooke asks a lot of questions, mostly based in the fact that she had virtually no memory of why she ended up in the hospital on Wednesday night. Michael had not been her first-choice conduit for this information, but apparently after her other options ran out she figured Michael was her best bet for finding someone who knew what the hell was happening other than Jeremy, who was not answering her texts.

Michael was not used to being talked to so much on a daily basis back when he was friends with Jeremy, let alone now. First Rich, then Christine and Brooke. It was like somehow Jeremy’s squip-induced popularity was rubbing off on him while Jeremy was busy being in unconscious.

It was a little too much, almost, because there was a _way_ bigger difference between having only one friend and having no friends than there was between having one or two or three people you talk to. Michael had been in the “no friends” category for a while now, and he had gone full days without interacting with another person, if his parents were busy enough. Bumping that up to five or six conversations a day? Draining. Overwhelming. Kind of interesting.

Eventually, Brooke asked to call Michael after class, since the conversation was overwhelming Brooke on account of the science fiction plot Michael was trying to describe. Michael denied this, because he hates phone calls. Then, Brooke offers to meet up in person after class. He looks back at her to see if she's serious, but she’s staring at her lap waiting for an answer.

Michael decides that if she’s willing to come with him to the mall while he photocopies his notes, he’s willing to answer questions. To his surprise, Brooke agrees.


	15. Chapter 15

After school, Brooke met Michael in the student parking lot. She looked far more nervous than he would have expected, and he wasn’t sure why. Michael felt weird greeting her because as far as Michael could recall they had never spoken before, but now they were going to go to the mall together. Sure, it was for office supplies, but it felt weird. All he knew about her was that she was in his physics and English classes, and that most people considered her Chloe Valentine’s second in command. The Second Most Popular Girl in School. Heartwarming title. It had a similar ring to Cool Guy’s Estranged Childhood Friend, despite the higher tier circles she found her peers in.

Michael also knew that she had dated Jeremy, and that Jeremy had supposedly cheated on her, and apparently, hadn’t cheated on her. He was not sure the context of any of this and what it meant to her opinions of Michael as a person.

“Hi. Um. I want to be clear that I only believe you a little bit, because it matches my memory. I want proof though.”

As much as Michael understands this, he’s at a bit of a loss for what to do about it. He’s was telling the truth. As they continue, Michael walks toward his car. Brooke looks it over with a bit of disbelief when she sees it, and casually states that it smells like weed when she gets in, but it’s not the worst reaction Michael had gotten. Frankly, he’s a bit surprised she was even willing to get inside.

“I swear to God I’m telling the truth. I don’t know what kind of proof you need.”

“I don’t know… Oh! Tell me something only I’d remember!”

Michael couldn’t do this precisely, seeing as he knew shit all about Brooke Lohst, but he was pretty sure he knew what she meant.

“Um… I’m going to build a scene for you? See if you remember it. You’re practicing or onstage or something, then you drink some Mountain Dew with… with a bit of Wintergreen mint. Then you feel a zap, or… or jolt, or something…”

It was occurring to Michael he did not know enough of the situation to properly describe it and was just hoping he was guessing things correctly enough. Brooke had mentioned Puck’s Pansy Serum when they texted, so he was taking a leap of faith on Jeremy’s squipping method of choice.

“Then you hear a voice inside your head, or see a person, or something, and they tell you that you can, um, be more popular or whatever you want most. All you have to do is stop Jeremy from drinking the Red.”

Brooke is staring at him, her face an unreadable mix of emotions. Michael assumes he’s doing something right, since that’s probably the face he would make if someone described his strangest fever dream to him as if it were true.

“Then you and Chloe Valentine, um, talk about how Jeremy didn’t have sex with either of you? And you felt really connected. When Christine screamed, your head hurt maybe, because you were also connected to her, and you started screaming too. Then everything went black, and you woke up at the hospital.”

She continued to look at him dismayed. Michael gave an awkward smile and a shrug, and she turned away to stare out the window.

“It feels like you just told me about a dream, but I think I kind of remember that.”

“Look, even if you don’t believe me, Jeremy’s in the hospital still. He’s obviously can’t talk, but Rich will confirm the squip story.”

Soon enough they were in Menlo Park Mall, heading for Staples. Brooke tagged along like a puppy, slightly behind Michael but leaning forward to look him in the face while she talked. She asked him plenty of questions, and Michael did his best to answer them, but she was frowning for most of the conversation, clearly not quite satisfied.

Michael, on the other hand, had had quite enough of the squip. He knew nothing, could do nothing to help, and was the only person he knew who hadn’t eaten one. Instead he focused on photocopying his schoolwork as he struggled through a Lightning Question Round of Brooke’s design, feeling slightly sorry for the nurses he had bombarded with his own equivalents these last few days.

Also, to Michael’s own surprise, it occurred to him while he was photocopying to make another set for Rich. There was no way that he had taken notes in years if the squip did for him what Michael assumed it did for Jeremy. He could use them too, and it was only like three extra dollars in paper. In a split second, Project: Notes for Jeremy because simply Project: Notes. He hit the copy button again, feeling an emotion he couldn’t quite identify. He dubs it the Looking Out for Strangers Emotion. Were he and Rich still strangers?

“Hey, Michael, can I ask you a question?”

“You’ve been asking me a lot of questions already but yeah.”

“Um, so Jeremy didn’t cheat on me.”

“Yeah.”

“Does… Do you know if he actually likes me, though?”

Michael feels his stomach drop a bit, because even though he isn’t _absolutely_ certain he knows the answer, he’s pretty goddamned sure. He glances over to Brooke, who was picking at her nail polish, then back at the copier. Michael picked at his own, awkwardly.

“Oh… Okay.”

She answered before Michael did, using whatever sixth sense Michael doesn’t have to figure out what he didn’t want to say. That seemed unfair, since he could neither tell her nor not tell her that Jeremy liked Christine without making her feel bad. The world shouldn’t make him do that. Brooke took a deep breath and patted her cheeks with the palms of her hands, then changed the topic. Well, sort of.

“You said you were going to the hospital tonight?”

“Yeah, probably, why?”

“Can you give me a ride? I live by there, and want to at least visit, y’know?”

Michael agreed, because fuck it, he was going anyways, and she had already made his car smell like lip gloss. It still felt a bit surreal, though, how friendly she was. Maybe friendly wasn’t the right word, because it didn’t feel as though Brooke was seeking out a friendship with Michael, but maybe casually interactive. She was polite and made a couple jokes, and complemented Michael on his tattoo when he had rolled up his sleeves.

She’d never been _unfriendly_ to him, per se, but it’s not like they had talked before now. He wondered if something had changed and she had sought Michael out or if she was just a nice person and had just never happened into the circumstance where they spoke. It’s not like Michael ever sought out a conversation with her either. Or maybe even she was just being nice because she needed a ride; it’s not like he could tell the difference.

“Do you mind if we stop by Purdy’s first? I want to get him a gift or something. Chocolate seems good, right?”

“He’s allergic to strawberries.”

“Cool. No strawberry then.”

Michael waited around, analysing the intricate patterns etched onto the different chocolates on display. They were starting to advertise for Christmas, which it felt far too early for but was actually only a month away. Things were being covered in reds and greens.

Brooke picked and chose chocolates one by one, constructing what she imagined was best suited to Jeremy’s tastes, and Michael was impressed. If he still knew Jeremy’s tastes, she wasn’t far off. Then she got two extras, an orange chocolate square decorated with white chocolate, and a dark chocolate, cherry filled, and circular one with a crosshatched pattern on top.

“Pick one.”

She held them out to Michael in her palm. He chose the orange one, and she stuck the cherry one in her mouth.

“Thanks.”

“No prob.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for those of you who care: I'M SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG i had to take a break from writing for exams and then i was super busy for the start of my break and i feel a little bad because now i'm trying to get back into gear and it's hard and i'm writing slow. idk i'll figure it out
> 
> i’m trying to avoid writing much romance in this because it’s not about that and i’m bad at writing it but the fact brooke has a crush on jeremy is. pretty cute tbh when you ignore jeremy's behaviour while squipped. therefore i am including bits and pieces of some kind of four dimensional love shape from a fucking shakespearean comedy. also even without actively writing the crushes in i have this nightmarish chain of pining in the back of my brain. it’s no love triangle. it’s no love square. it is a masterful t-shaped anomaly of unrequited crushes. luckily, since i can't write romance, the three dimensional subsection of that shape that you can see in the fiction is like. Super small. and you don't have to deal with my obsession with unrequited pining. requited pining is happier and better you say? i agree. yes you are probably correct. frankly i don't know what my own deal is.
> 
> i’m losing my mind i put purdy’s in because it’s the only chocolate factory i know but then i googled it and found out its based out of vancouver and only exists basically in western canada??? i can’t believe this. i used it anyways because i literally cannot think of anything that is quite the same vibe. that kind of Good Chocolate you get ppl as a gift for like christmas or valentines. the unnaturally expensive stuff with nuts or cream fillings. that
> 
> also since i dont think ive said this in a bit, thank you for reading! i'll try to write faster than i have been in the future


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for rich putting himself down a bunch in this chapter and the next one. all pretty minor but just wanna warn ya!

“You can come in, if you want, I’m just going to grab some stuff and eat.”

“Nah, I’ll wait here, if that’s fine.”

“I might be a while.”

“I’m good!”

Michael shrugged at Brooke in his passenger seat as he got out of the car and headed into his house. He was ultra aware of her being there, as well as every second that past while she was there, and he was not, but he had promised his parents he’d come home, say hello, and eat something. It felt like weeks ago.

He felt the déjà vu come back as he slipped into the rhythm of the night prior. Shower, change of clothes, microwave dinner, brush teeth, et cetera, et cetera. Once again, his mother suggested he take a nap. This time, he wasn’t about to collapse on his feet, but could still use it. He also had a stranger in his car. That took precedence. 

He had a quick conversation with his parents as they asked how he was doing, and actually, at the moment, Michael was doing pretty alright. And “pretty alright” was a stark improvement from the “not currently dying” he had felt the day prior. He kissed them each on the cheek, grabbed two bottles of Mountain Dew Red, and headed back out.

The drive back to the hospital was quiet, Brooke and Michael both caught in their own thoughts. It occurred to Michael that she was probably the first person other than Jeremy and his parents to be in his car, but this didn’t feel like a pleasant thing to say, so he kept it to himself. He wondered what Brooke was thinking about.

When Michael came through the door to Rich and Jeremy’s room, Rich was on his side reading a book pinned between his hand and the wall of the bedframe. Jeremy was, unsurprisingly, asleep. Rich flipped his glasses onto his head when he noticed them, pulling his loose bangs into a mane that stood on end.

“Oh, Rich! Hi!”

Brooke smiled at him, flicking her fingers in a little wave as she walked over to Jeremy’s bedside table to place the chocolates. Rich looked slightly nervous.

“Hey, Brooke.”

“I forgot he said… mm… Michael said you’d be here. Been missing you at school. People are saying some _wild_ stuff.”

Rich kind of cringed at that, and Brooke looked slightly apologetic. Michael found himself more intrigued by Brooke’s honest effort to recall and use his name while talking. Sure, he had only introduced himself a matter of hours ago, but it wasn’t a courtesy he always received or expected.

“Heh, yeah, I can imagine.”

“Uh, Michael says you can confirm what happened at the play?”

Rich looks to him, confused.

“Just tell her about the squip.”

“They’re, uh, a little brain computer from Japan. Jeremy gave them to everyone at the play.”

There was something weird about the way Rich was talking to Brooke, but Michael was struggling to place it. He listened from the sidelines on his trusty plastic chair while they spoke, staring at Jeremy’s heart monitor. Michael had no intention of attempting to talk to multiple people at once.

“Did you have one?”

“Yeah. Before, though. I told Jeremy about them.”

“Is that why you did the…? Jake’s house?”

“Uh, yep. The thing can kind of control you. Make you think an idea could be better than... yeah. I didn’t mean for people to get hurt.”

Oh! Michael figured it out! Now he looked to Rich, analysing him, trying to figure out _why_. It had to have something to with his and Jeremy’s shared obsession with being cool, but why vary? Why didn’t he do that in front of Michael?

“It looks like you were hurt more than anyone else! Jake broke his legs, but he’s getting better, y’know?”

“Fuck, dude.”

“Yeah…”

They trailed off, and Brooke looked Jeremy over. Michael felt a bit like he was looking into a mirror as she did. Then she pulled a little stationary kit out of her bag and put a sticky note on the chocolates she offered Jeremy. She jotted a card in her swirly handwriting.

Get well soon!  
xoxo Brooke

She looked Jeremy over one more time, then sighed.

“I should go.”

“You just got here.”

“Yeah, but I’m technically grounded, so I should get home before my mum freaks.”

“Do you want a ride?”

Michael asked to be polite, not because he wanted to give her one. He had just given her one here. When she answered he was grateful and absolutely prepared to rub it in Jeremy’s face when he woke up.

“Nah, I’ll just take the bus. I live like five blocks from here, anyways. Just wanted to stop by, y’know?”

Michael nodded, trying not to let himself grin. He was so ready to yell at Jeremy about how cool people rode the bus too. Jeremy was always so bent out of shape about that. Drive your car! It’s cool! Only losers ride the bus! It’s better to walk than ride the bus! Never, ever, take the bus! Shows him. Michael wins.

That reminds him, he was going to leave Jeremy his notes. Rich waves as Brooke leaves the room, and Michael starts digging into his bag.

“Why did you avoid S’s when you were talking to Brooke?”

He doesn’t look up when he asks, trying to keep the garbage in his bag _in_ his bag, instead of on the floor while he tugs the binder out. Nonetheless he can see Rich in his peripheral vision staring him down.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Well, I mean, it’s obviously the fact you have a lisp, but what’s the point of avoiding words?”

“So… I don’t lisp? I don’t understand the question.”

“I mean, you do it anyways, so why hide it? Isn’t that a pain in the ass?”

“Why are you so against people trying to make themselves look better?”

“I’m not. I just don’t get why it make’s you look better, or why it’s worth it.”

“It’s worth it ’cause I talk like a fucking toddler and it makes me look like an idiot.”

Michael looks up at Rich now.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, it’s just what everyone thinks!”

Something clicked. Everything Rich did made a lot more sense now, because Michael finally realised something very important: he wasn’t just similar to Jeremy. He was fucking just like Jeremy. He had the same weird rules and restrictions and expectations of how people acted. He was equally bad at following them. Rich was a person who wanted to meet his own warped expectation of what a person was based on the weird and changing concept of what makes you Cool. He just didn’t say it in as many words as Jeremy.

Now, figuring this out didn’t mean that Michael knew what to do, or that it actually made any sense to him. He had been dealing with Jeremy’s weird rules for half a decade and apparently never succeeded in convincing him otherwise, hence the circumstance he found himself in now. It was the world’s fault, with all it’s rules, that made them feel like that. It was all those rules that Michael didn’t know and didn’t understand and, in the end, had resorted to ignoring.

Either way, similar or different to Jeremy, Rich was frustrated, or angry, or something along those lines. Michael found himself getting upset too, for a weird jumble of reasons he wasn’t prepared to work out.

“I don’t think actual people think like that.”

“Just ’cause you don’t care doesn’t mean the world doesn’t.”

“Just because you _think_ they care doesn’t mean they do! You lisp, Jeremy stammers, so what? I went to speech therapy for like three years and I still can’t fucking talk like half—!”

“Yeah, but notice: we’re all fucking freaks!”

Then Rich went quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to my folks w/ speech impediments: me too bud. i have no intention of putting anyone down!! i have a really, lets say, _intense_ stammer and have been to speech therapy 3 times for various reasons. pls don't feel bad about mispronouncing stuff! you are talking as best you can
> 
> i've never really written arguing before? hopefully i did okay. there is more next chapter i have never written like before, so i hope it all turns out alright? i'm very nervous because it's out of my comfort zone


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning ya again that rich puts himself down a bunch here! michael is bad at comfort but he's trying
> 
> i'm. frankly very scared to post this chapter because i don't know how to write!!! this is new to me!! i hope i can get ideas across fluidly (or if not fluidly they're at least present)

Jeremy was a person who got very angry about being very sad. Michael thought of this as one variation on how people are, where they go from Soft Upset to Hard Upset as the shear quantity of emotion increases. There was a second pattern that people followed sometimes, too, where they got Hard Upset like angry or indignant first, and then as they react they fall apart into a Soft Upset like embarrassment or sadness. Michael held a bias toward the second pattern. Apparently, so did Rich. His face went pinker than it already was when he stopped arguing, and Michael flushed a little too.

Michael turned toward the door to avoid looking at Rich as much. He wanted him to be invisible. Part of him wanted to get up and leave now, but he also already agreed with himself that Rich was not allowed to be his reason to leave Jeremy. Even if he called him names. Names only hurt if he let them. Maybe.

After a moment of internal turmoil, though, he noticed that Rich had also called himself a freak. Once Michael got over the initial pang of hurt, that was really telling. It was once again one of those words that Rich said in this hospital room that he had shouted at Michael a million times before, but recontextualized.

Right now, Michael wasn’t intentionally being berated. Rich was. It was directed at himself, in an accidentally-on-purpose also targeting Michael kind of way. Jeremy did that a lot. “It sucks that I can’t do this, I’m such a loser because I can’t do that. But, oh, no, it’s fine that you can’t, Michael.” Now that Michael had put up this Just-Like-Jeremy filter, the similarities weren’t going to end.

After a minute, Michael took a deep breath and turned back towards the wall, instead of the door, so Rich was in his peripheral. He sneaked a proper look in his direction, and Rich was staring out the window, or maybe at the other wall. Either way, he was actively looking away from Michael. Michael decided to try fixing things a bit, but he had to admit that it didn’t really work.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I swear I’m asking legit questions.”

“Sorry, I—I didn’t really mean… It’s just…”

Rich’s breathing stuttered when he started talking, then he breathed in deeply and leant his head back, as if pleading gravity to let the tears seep back into his eyes. When Michael saw them shine against the light, he realised just how unprepared he was for Rich crying. 

“It’s just, like, how are you cool with—with being the weird, anti-social headphones kid? How are you—fine with that?”

Michael felt every catch in Rich’s voice right to his core, leaving him unsure whether the culprit was anxiety or sympathy. Rich finally gave in and wiped his eyes, choking out a sob. Michael answered with a shrug.

“I’m not really fine with it, I just eventually stopped trying.”

It was the second time he’d admitted that this week, the first time to Jeremy on the night of the play. He didn’t really like saying it, but it was true; it would be nice to have more people like him. He just wasn’t good enough at making them like him to be worth his time and effort. He also knew that if he wasn’t acting like himself when they liked him, that was no guarantee that they actually liked him. He couldn’t maintain that kind of act. Michael felt himself being pulled toward the hallway, but instead paid attention to his breathing and the white wall in front of him, wringing his hands while Rich fell apart.

“Then how are you so happy! It’s not fair!”

“I don’t know. I do stuff that makes me happy. It’s not like it’s my only emotion.”

“I—don’t know how—how to do that, Michael.”

Rich apparently hadn’t expected a response, because whereas he normally looked at Michael expectantly while he figured out what he was trying to say, right now he just sneaked the occasional glance at Michael and looked back away, awkwardly, as if he would have run away by now if he weren’t hooked up to four different cords and burnt on the pads of his feet.

Michael decided to go back to his binder. It was still in his hand from pulling it out earlier, and he had accidentally incited chaos before he had a chance to gift his notes away. He pulled one of the hastily clipped bundles out of it, and one of the drinks from the front pouch of his bag. Michael took another deep breath to increase his nerve, although he couldn’t be sure it did anything for him other than steady his breathing. Maybe he was just procrastinating.

Michael broke his focus on his bag and the wall for a split second, allowing himself another glance in Rich’s direction. Rich must have known by then that Michael could tell that he was crying, but he still wasn’t looking at him. It felt uncanny; normally Michael liked not locking eyes, but right now it aided in making it feel like something was wrong. To be fair, something _was_ wrong.

After he decided he was in fact procrastinating, he walked over to Rich, who was beginning to steady his breathing himself. He snuffled over and over, so Michael picked up the box of tissues on the bedside table and held them out in front of him, tucking the notes beneath his other arm. Rich took one, looking embarrassed and small, and blew his nose.

“I wonder if a nurse saw you if they would panic or something. That would suck.”

Rich shrugged, tugging his mouth back into a lazy attempt at a smile. Michael sighed before continuing with a different approach. He climbed over Rich’s legs toward the end of his bed, once again careful not to sit on feet, crossed his legs, and made himself comfortable a reasonable distance away.

“I don’t really know what to do right now so I’m going to just sit here. If you want me to go back over there I can. These are for you. I photocopied my notes, today, in case you wanted them? Y’know, if the squip, like, did homework for you, or whatever. And a Mountain Dew Red, just in case… something.”

Michael was nervous, so the tone in his voice was virtually nonexistent. Still, he held out the pad of paper and bottle, one in each hand, and Rich took them from him solemnly. After a few seconds he smiled a bit, looking it over. He huffed, a weak attempt at laughter.

“Thanks. You have really nice writing.”

Michael shrugged, and Rich sat quietly, letting his hospital gown slowly dampen against his face. Michael sat too, unsure what Rich might be thinking, and drawing circles on the bedspread with his fingers. If nothing else, Michael could be patient. Eventually, after his forty-third swirl, Rich spoke up again.

“Uh, sorry for calling you a freak. That wasn’t fair.”

Michael wasn’t really expecting an apology, but Rich looked sincere. It was obvious he still believed what he said, but the apology still meant something.

“It’s fine. Depending who you ask, I am a freak. I don’t think you should care who thinks that, though. Sorry for making you upset.”

“Sorry, yeah, uh, it’s fine. You kind of made some, like, valid points. I didn’t really, heh—”

Rich laughs a bit. Another huff of air while he’s trying to figure out what he’s saying as he says it. He sits up to properly face Michael, wiping his red eyes again, but now it’s Michael’s turn to be busy with the super interesting window.

“I didn’t really, like, acknowledge that you didn’t like being… I don’t know. You act like you don’t care about anyone but Jeremy.”

“I mean, that’s kind of true, but that’s ’cause he’s my only friend. Or—he was. I don’t know. I don’t get why strangers think I hate them. I want to care about other people and stuff. I just don’t have opinions on people I don’t talk to.”

“I mean, being real, you’re wicked blunt and ask weird questions sometimes, but you’re a hell of a lot friendlier than I thought you were.”

Michael raises his eyebrows and finally looks at Rich, a little bewildered.

“ _I’m_ a lot friendlier? If we’re talking first impressions I think you have me beat.”

Rich opens his mouth to say something, then closes it nervously. He opens it again though.

“Yeah, that’s fair. Sorry about that, again, while I’m apologising.”

“Why do you want people who are petty about shit like speech impediments to like you anyways?”

Rich hesitates.

“I don’t fucking know. Self importance? I get it’s shitty but I—I _have_ to know someone likes me. I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this. I was a shitty person with the squip, but I’m fucking terrified now. I’m nothing without it.”

“I like you. You’re like, infinitely better than you were like a month ago. Did you have friends before you got a squip?”

Rich didn’t answer that one. Michael scrunched his face, debating how to say what he was going to say anyways.

“I had one friend for twelve years. One, and I was okay with that. Then I had zero for a bit, but let me tell you: there is a huge fucking difference between having no friends and having one friend. One is like infinitely more than zero.”

Rich continued to not interject.

“I mean, apparently, one wasn’t enough for Jeremy, but, like, if you didn’t have friends, maybe it’s worth trying out having one? Or two? Maybe you'd like having just a few. We can be friends. If you’re okay with the, uh, anti-social headphones kid.”

Rich smiled. It was soft, and his eyes weren’t in it, but it was still genuine.

“Yeah, Michael, I’d like that. Friends.”


	18. Chapter 18

“Can I hug you? I think this is a good time to hug except you’re like… covered in bandages. I also won’t hug you if you don’t like hugs.”

Rich smiled a little more at that. He stuck his arms out widely.

“Uh, be gentle.”

It was probably one of the most awkward hugs Michael had initiated in his life. He clambered over Rich carefully, still supporting himself on the bed with one hand and hugging with the other. Rich hugged him back, overextending his chin to get it over Michael’s shoulder and patting him on the back far warily. They hovered against each other, not properly touching, and it made it feel slightly wrong. Still, it was nice in theory and in purpose. This hug established the presence of not only a new friend, but perhaps the beginnings of a friend group. A gang. A party of folks.

As he sat back down at the end of Rich’s bed, he found himself with nothing in particular to say or do. Rich must have thought the same, because he started scanning the notes Michael gave him again. Albeit slightly more gentler, he was smiling the same bright smile with dimples and crescent eyes that he gave Michael on their first interaction in the hospital. It was a really nice smile.

Things like that smile which Michael could guarantee he had never seen before made it pop back into Michael’s head the gravity of the change in Rich’s personality. Sometimes it made his head spin, but it’s not as though he was particularly well versed in either version of Rich’s behaviours. He tried to take it as reassurance that Jeremy would be Jeremy again once he woke up.

A slightly more arrogant side of Michael’s conscious mind felt a little like a hero. The part that didn’t care about the well being of others but liked to do things that made him seem impressive was whirring about how he was the one who saved the day that day. Not for Rich, obviously, but Rich's transformation showcased how much garbage the squip liked to spew. He helped get the awful thing out of the brains of the drama class. Sure, Christine drank the drink, and it was because of Jeremy, but they’d all be toast if it weren’t for Michael’s help.

The part of his brain he liked to listen too, though, was just happy everyone was going to be okay. Mostly, he just felt it sinking in that Rich Goranski was going to be a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhh im still doing this i promise i have just been. so busy. i'm sorry. i don't have long to go now i dont think ! pls stick around <3


	19. Chapter 19

“Oh. Hi, Michael.”

Michael had been explaining how his notes were organised to Rich when Mr. Heere walked in. He had a take-out meal in his hands and took a seat next to Jeremy’s bed. He was in Michael’s chair, but Michael was willing to put up with that for now since he was still on Rich’s bed himself.

“Hi, Mr. Heere. How are you?”

“Uh, I could be better. Jeremy could be better. But you know how it is. Who’s your friend?”

Rich spoke up for himself.

“Richard Goranski, sir. I have classes with both Jeremy and Michael.”

“Oh, is that right? I didn’t know you boys were friends.”

“That’s, um, kind of a new development actually. You’re Jeremy’s dad, right?”

“Yessiree. Isaiah Heere at your service. You can call me Isaiah; Mr. Mell’s mothers just insisted he be overbearingly respectful as a child.”

Michael half apologised for his “overbearing respect” that he knew Mr. Heere didn’t mind as he got up from his seat and walked over to shake Rich’s hand. Michael couldn’t exactly read the expression on Rich’s face as he did. He could read Mr. Heere’s, though, which appeared to be apprehension. Maybe he couldn’t read Rich’s face either. Or, maybe he knew Rich’s name from Jeremy or somewhere else. He had a bit of a reputation.

As he sat back down, once again in Michael’s spot, he asked Michael a question he was not expecting.

“So, Michael, do you have a classmate named Christine?”

He flashed a frown and proceeded to look to Rich for help, but quickly realised that he didn’t have any power to do so. Rich smiled slightly as he went back to Michael’s notes. Michael suspected that he probably did know what was up, he just wanted to watch Michael struggle.

“Um, yeah, why?”

“Oh, I just dropped by the other evening, and there was a young lady leaving the room. She introduced herself as Christine. Obviously, you know Jeremy, I had never heard of her. He hasn’t gotten an awful lot of visitors, though, I was hoping you knew who she was.”

“She’s a friend. Of his.”

“Be honest. A friend. Or a _friend_.”

“I don’t know what that means, sir.”

“Girlfriend, Michael.”

“Um… no. I don’t think so? Not right now.”

“Not right now, eh?”

Michael figures he’s going to continue to be hounded. He also figures he’s allowed to get back at Jeremy with little things in life for the rest of eternity, so decides to give it up.

“He’s had a crush on her since the end of freshman year.”

“Really!”

Rich eyes Michael from above his notes with a grin on his face, do doubt enjoying watching Michael gossip with Jeremy’s father. He almost certainly knew about Christine already, so he just sat back and enjoyed the show.

“Yeah, he talked about her all the time. I think she’s part of why he signed up for the play.”

“Oh, that boy is a hopeless romantic.”

“He really is.”

Mr. Heere shoves a mouthful of his take-out burger into his mouth, looking Jeremy up and down as everyone does these days.

“I know it’s none of my business, really, but if Jeremy likes this girl, could you make sure that he asks her out?”

“I mean, I can try. I’ve kind of been trying for like a year, though.”

“I don’t want him to miss out on these things just because of the… you know, the anxiety. I think it’s been causing him more problems than I was aware of.”

Understatement of the century, but true nonetheless.

“I’ll do my best.”

“Thank you, Michael. You know, if—when—when that boy wakes up, he’s in a lot of trouble.”

“I think that’s fair.”

“And if he’s in a lot of trouble, he might need a friend to help him through. I don’t know what’s been going on with him lately, but it’s up to you and me to help him out. You know what I mean?”

“I think so, Mr. Heere. You be a good dad, too. You’re allowed to ask him what’s going on.”

Mr. Heere nods and continues eating quietly. They had a couple more exchanges that qualify as Talking To Your Friends' Parents Conversations as new questions arose to Jeremy’s father, but it wasn’t long before Mr. Heere opted to seeking out nurses to play a game of twenty questions and wait impatiently for something to happen. Apparently, they were done talking.

Michael certainly didn’t mind that since he liked Mr. Heere, in a dad sort of way. He also wanted the best for Jeremy and him, but he was still slightly weirded out about talking to him without Jeremy’s company. He had done that a few times lately, and it was starting to feel reminiscent of when he was seven, being babysat by Mr. Heere and sitting in the lobby of the music studio while Jeremy had piano lessons. The difference was instead of being questioned incessantly on how his DSi worked, they were collaboratively brainstorming for the future happiness of Jeremy Heere.

Michael looked to Rich, who had been watching the conversation patiently, who now was reading his book again, chewing on his lip while he thought. Michael just put on his headphones and rubbed his knuckles together. After about a minute more, he moved to sit on the floor, against the wall between Rich and Jeremy’s beds and the room was quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is some seriously out of wack pacing in this story but i do NOT know how to fix it but i want to get this end to you!! its been a month and a half since i wrote anything!!! so please accept the weirdness


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for medical emergencies!!

As the evening drew on Michael was trying to convince himself to do homework. He took it out of his bag and everything, but it was Friday night and there was very little dedication he could muster for the task. He could do this Sunday, anyways, and with some luck he wouldn’t have an overwhelming fear for Jeremy’s life on his plate by then. He also wouldn’t be trying (and failing) to complete the task while Jeremy’s father paced in and out of the room, with and without nurses, on random time intervals.

Finally, as Jeremy’s dad took off for the night, Michael figured he might be able to focus enough to get something done. It wouldn’t be a lot, he had already accepted that much, but he thought he’d get at least few questions done in math, or if he was really dedicated, part of a draft for his essay in English.

“Fuck, dude, I could go for a burger.”

He looked up at Rich, who had been reading again, willing to put his glasses back on in Jeremy’s father’s presence. In the back of his head Michael wondered where the line was drawn for who counted as Popular Enough or Cool Enough to have him resort to flicking them off at light speed again. Michael certainly wasn’t. As he didn’t reply, Rich took it upon himself to continue.

“Like, I didn’t notice how much I missed garbage food. For one, the squip doesn’t let you eat shit food unless there’s a social gain, and second I’ve been eating hospital food for like a month now which is not awesome.”

“When is eating crappy food good socially?”

“Solid question, but I’m just the messenger here. I have no idea.”

“Like, you should eat when you go out for fast food with friends?”

“Maybe.”

“Would that be only if they also ate gross food, or just anyways? I would think you’d look fancy or something if you got a salad at a fast food place. All, oh, look at me, I care about my body. Or maybe that’s pretentious, so you get greasy stuff, so you don’t make people think you’re uppity?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, dude.”

He shrugs. The more Michael heard Rich talk about the squip, the more he realised Rich had no idea why he did half of the things he did. Michael found some comfort in that on a surface level, he didn’t mean harm, but it made him feel gross if he thought about it too long. Rich probably felt worse. He did a lot of things, both good and bad, just because he was told to.

“Are you even allowed to eat not-hospital food?”

“What? No, yeah, technically I am. I just don’t have any means to get it.”

“Couldn’t someone bring… or, actually, you haven’t really had visitors I guess. What’s up with that?”

“Uh, short version is my dad’s kind of useless and my brother doesn’t live here, but yeah. Shitty hospital food for me.”

“Mm.”

Michael wasn’t sure if he wanted to press further, or how to do so. He was also busy warding off the increasing desire for McDonald’s he was feeling since the conversation started. He closed his books back up, resigning himself to a Sunday Night Homework Extravaganza, and sat up properly against the wall. He didn’t realise his feet had gone numb beneath his own weight until he felt pins and needles jar things into focus.

Despite the lull in their conversation, Rich followed suit, closing his book and tossing it onto his bedside table. It was as if he hadn’t intended on initiating a conversation but was willing to engage. As far as Michael was concerned, he started this. He waited patiently for Rich to say something to continue.

“You said earlier that you’ve been friends with Jeremy for twelve years.”

“Mm, yeah. We went to the same pre-school.”

“That’s so fucking long.”

Michael nodded. 

“I guess. What’s a normal amount of time?”

“I read somewhere once that it’s like seven years or something.”

“Oh, okay, I think I’ve heard that too. Or, like, every cell in your body is different in seven years? Mhm. I think both are facts.”

“Yeah, that one’s a thing too I think.”

“Actually, no, that one’s wrong, there’s like some ones in your brain that don’t ever change after you’re born. Neurons or whatever.”

“Oh, neat.”

Michael filed this conversation away for later. Apparently Rich Goranski was the kind of friend he got to bounce facts back and forth with. That was cool, because Jeremy was not a friend he could bounce facts back and forth with. Normally Jeremy listened, but then asked questions Michael didn’t know the answer too, or sometimes they didn’t actually have anything to do with he fact, because he didn’t really understand what Michael was saying. That was okay though, he normally hadn’t read the Wikipedia page the night before. Michael normally had.

Rich Goranski also says neat.

“Have you had a friend for seven years?”

Rich shrugs. There’s silence again for a moment, then Rich changes the topic. Michael is getting to know the fact Rich really doesn’t like questions quite well over these last few days.

“What are you working on?”

“Math homework.”

“What type of math homework?”

“The stuff due Monday. Foiling, or whatever.”

Michael liked foiling. He didn’t like the name, though, because it was used like a verb even though it was an acronym for a list of nouns. It was words like that that made language infuriating. Also, the order was annoying. Michael lost track unless he filoed it, but filoing wasn’t a thing in math class. Anyways, words meant nothing anyways, and were all made just so that people could talk to each other. BEDMAS, PEMDAS, BITADMAP. They all meant the same thing.

“You say that like I know what’s due Monday.”

“Oh, right.”

He hadn’t been to school in nearly a month. Michael decides this is worth exploring.

“Do you have homework?”

“Probably.”

“But not now?”

“Nope.”

“Does that mean you’re going to get it all when you go back to school?”

“Uh, yeah, probably. I’m like 90% sure someone’s supposed to get it for me or something, but I do not have someone doing that. On the plus side, no homework.”

Michael frowned. He may have been nerdy or geeky or whatever, but he agreed with the general consensus that homework sucks. Just because the work was cool doesn’t mean he wanted to do it at home when he could be researching the made-up science of warp coils at two in the morning instead of foiling algebraic statements. Despite this, he also had the forethought to dread the idea of going to school after a month having done none of the work in between, having it all dumped on him last minute, and maybe failing eleventh grade. Michael was getting close enough to failing eleventh grade while attending moderately regularly, thank you very much.

“How much longer are you in the hospital?”

“I have no fucking clue honestly. I can take medicine and hurt all over in my own time. Maybe until my feet aren’t singed and melty?”

“Gross.”

“Or maybe until I can bend enough to wrap my entire body in bandages.”

“Could you do that even at full bendiness?”

Rich ignores this question.

“There’s also all the science-y sounding side effects like sepsis and hypovolemia and keloids and junk that they got to make sure I don’t get.”

“Isn’t hypovolemia just blood loss? Don’t they know you don’t have that by now?”

“Yeah, but the other things are—”

Jeremy flatlines.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bedmas: brackets, exponents, divide, multiply, add, subtract  
> pemdas: parentheses, exponents, multiply, divide, add, subtract  
> bitadmap: brackets, index, times and divide, minus and plus


	21. Chapter 21

If Michael wasn’t freaking out, he’d be amazed at how fast his mood can flip. In some ways he wonders if that would happen to everyone, or if it’s a him thing, because he’s definitely aware that he freaks out more than other people when bad things happen. Personally, he thinks it’s warranted. Bad things are bad.

Michael had been bored a minute ago. Well, he wasn’t entirely bored, because he was having a conversation, but if you asked him how he was he would have said fine. There was nothing particularly happening, and he was kind of getting numb to the nerves that Jeremy’s hospitalisation caused. Then in an instant he stopped listening to Rich talk and fine turned to fear and upset.

Michael stopped hearing Rich speak about two seconds before chaos ensued. He couldn’t tune sounds out, so as much as he wasn’t trying to listen to the beeping of Jeremy’s heart monitor or Rich’s oxygen machine or either of the IV machines, they all made sounds that made it harder to listen to words that people said. All the sounds were out of sync, but they were all whirring and beeping and making noise in the background, so when the background sounds changed, Michael noticed.

The beep didn’t happen. It was the first second that passed that the heart monitor didn’t make noise which distracted Michael. It’s hard to tell what’s different when something disappears, though, even when you can tell that it’s different. Michael only had time to question the change for a moment before the second second passed and an alarm rang out.

Michael’s hands went to his ears and he shot up from the ground. It wasn’t actually all that loud, it was just as loud as the beeps, but the sound was so bad it felt louder. That was when Rich actually stopped talking and looked somewhat panicked himself, not that Michael was paying attention. It only took hearing the shrill sound to figure out what was wrong.

“Jeremy.”

The idea Michael had was to get help, but really, he just mumbled. If he tried harder he would have called a nurse’s name, like Kalum or Sandy or Ezra or Mary or Kira. Not Jeremy. He also would have said it a little bit louder than a whisper. He felt his heart beating twice as fast as the second before, as if to compensate, and he couldn’t really breathe. One of his hands moved from his ear into a vague gesture toward his friend.

“Wh—Fuck, uh, Nurse!”

Rich shouted, a bit more successfully than Michael, then scrambled around his bed, turning in circles until he found the beige cord with a small, bright red button on the end. There was a buzzing alongside the flatline screech from then on, because Rich didn’t let go of the call button.

Some distant part of Michael’s mind might have figured that buzzing the nurses wouldn’t help because they probably already had some system in place already. It would be silly not to, but Michael wasn’t thinking this because his brain didn’t work anymore.

People burst into the room an amount of time after that that Michael couldn’t begin to fathom. Time was happening so slowly, and everything was taking forever, but everything was also yelling and shoving and beeping and crying and dying and it was so fast. Too fast.

It could have been a couple seconds, or maybe a minute. It probably wasn’t a minute though, because hearts can’t go without beating for very long, and Jeremy wasn’t allowed to die.

Someone asked Michael to leave, one of the nurses or doctors perhaps, but Michael wasn’t really listening. He couldn’t listen, noises were happening everywhere, and the person talking to Michael was far from the only person talking. Michael didn’t realise he was pressing himself into the wall behind himself, to keep from floating away, until someone grabbed him.

That was worse, in Michael’s opinion, than floating away. He shook himself out of their grip and ducked to the floor covering his ears again and closing his eyes alongside this time. All he wanted was for Jeremy to be okay.

Jeremy was doing a very bad job of being okay.

Someone grabbed him again from the floor, and this time he whined. He also wanted people to stop touching him and for all the noises to stop happening now.

Rich might have said something too, but Michael gave up on words a long time ago. The person who had him by the arm pulled him to his feet and deposited him in the hallway. He sat back down there instead.


	22. Chapter 22

When Michael was in the hallway, it was quieter. Normally the rooms were quieter, or at least steadier, because out here there were all sorts of beeps and rings and chatter from all the ways people in a hospital communicated with other people. The sounds in the room were normally consistent.

He was thinking again, after a minute. Maybe being removed from the situation was actually better for him, even though he did not like not being able to see what was happening in the room. In a way it was kind of like it wasn’t happening. 

It didn’t feel like it wasn’t happening, but it did feel less real. Now that Jeremy wasn’t unconscious in front of him, he could just think about Jeremy on his half-empty beanbag chair in his room, throwing the little beans at Michael that were leaking out an ever-growing hole in the center. Michael would try to catch them in his mouth, joking that they were beans, and if he did Jeremy would yell about how gross it was. Michael would pretend it was good, but they were made of EPS and tasted like machines, so he would spit them into his hands and hide them in his pockets. This version of Jeremy was better than the one in the room.

The hallway made him nervous, and people kept looking at him since he was sitting on the floor in a hospital. Michael weighed the pros and cons of being here versus the waiting room, and finally the waiting room won, since logically the only benefit of here was that he was as close to Jeremy as possible. Since that wasn’t actually any better than far away from Jeremy right now, he wandered to the waiting room.

It was kind of hard to believe that what had happened had actually happened. Jeremy’s heart stopped before Michael’s eyes. Fuck. Shit. Hell. Balls. He had looked exactly the same as he had the moment before. Why didn’t anything change? Dead Jeremy should be a hell of a lot more different from Alive Jeremy than he was. Michael had no idea what to do now, and he also couldn’t ask Rich for any more rough, half-hearted reassurance that maybe Rich’s heart also stopped before he woke up. He decided that stopping calling Jeremy dead might help his mood. He’s not dead until he can’t be brought back, right? Man, today was long.

He made his way to the waiting room to, well, wait. Whatever the hell was happening behind a closed door was going to happen, and Michael was trying exceptionally hard to be okay with that. In the waiting room he also paced around, digging his fingers into his palms. Somewhere in the back of his mind he congratulates himself for being careful and cutting his nails so regularly. He was bound to have at least one more Jeremy-induced meltdown before this whole fiasco was through.

Mr. Heere arrived a few minutes later. He probably hadn’t even made it home before he got a call about what had happened, and Michael couldn’t imagine what that call was like. What if this had happened while he was at school? Hell, he wouldn’t even know. It’s not like Michael was Jeremy’s emergency contact. Mr. Heere sat down in the seat that Michael imagined he would be sitting in if he weren’t still pacing back and forth. Mr. Heere was very good at taking Michael’s spot.

He looked at Michael with an expression he didn’t have the patience to try to understand, pretty quickly turning it into a weak smile. After thirty-seven more steps, a nurse came down the hall, beelining for Mr. Heere. Mr. Heere noticed this and stood up to walk over to her. Michael wanted to follow him, but he was pretty sure that Mr. Heere was supposed to get information first. The nurses only told Michael things because he asked. Mr. Heere was the one they actually wanted to tell. That didn’t feel fair, because Michael was maybe Jeremy’s best friend and life saver and coma inducer himself. He felt important. He still didn’t follow, though, because of the feeling of concrete swamping his feet. He watched them talk, and then Mr. Heere hugged the nurse and sprinted down the hall.

The nurse turned around to walk back too, but that got Michael moving. He was struggling to form the sentence he wanted to say, so he just tapped the nurse on her arm when he caught up. It was Mary again. She just looked at him when he tapped her, which was annoying. If everyone has the secret mind reading power, she should have used hers now and known that he wanted to know how Jeremy was.

“Is… how’s Jeremy?”

“Right, of course, you. He’s stable, moved rooms. Only family for visits, sorry kid.”

Michael’s stomach dropped, as if it could drop any further. He was immensely happy in some distant part of his brain that Jeremy was alive, but frankly he couldn’t make himself feel happy, because he was in exactly the same place they were before, except now Michael can’t see him.

“Oh, hey, you!”

Michael and Mary both turned around, and the nurse named Ezra waved them down.

“Sorry for rough timing. Are you Michael?”

Michael nodded.

“Rich asked me to give you his number.”

He handed Michael a slip of paper with, as expected, a phone number.

“Why?”

Ezra raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t know. He just wrote it down and asked me to give it to you. Or, specifically, ‘Michael: the kid with the headphones’. I figure that’s you.”

Michael nodded, confirming he was probably the kid with the headphones. It was weird though, what was up with Rich’s thing about his headphones? They’re just headphones. Then Ezra and Mary talked amongst themselves for a moment and smiled back at Michael while they left.


	23. Chapter 23

Michael sat in the waiting room staring up at the ceiling, unable to convince himself to drive home. It was passing midnight now, but he was pretty sure sleeping in this room might have been off limits. Even if it wasn’t, there was way too much noise to sleep. And so many emotions.

To be fair, he had thought there were too many emotions to sleep for three nights in a row now, and then slept at least a bit for two of them, but he was pretty sure this time. For now, he thought about the crumpled note from Rich in his pocket. He entered it into his phone when he got it, ignoring the texts from is mum about coming home, but he didn’t really get why Rich gave him his phone number through a nurse. At least it was a puzzle that could make him think about something else for a few seconds.

But his asshole, dead for a minute, fucking best friend Jeremy Heere worms his way back into the front of his brain soon enough. Michael’s beyond wondering if his obsession with Jeremy is healthy; at this point he’s just hoping it doesn’t kill him too.

His phone buzzes. His mama asks again if he’s coming home in the morning. He ignores it.

He stares at the ceiling for a minute longer.

His phone buzzes again. He turns notifications off and walks up to the counter.

“Hi, how can I help you?”

The lady at the front desk was familiar, and Michael tried to place her in his memory. He might have just signed in with her before, but his tired brain was getting stuck on it.

“Sir?”

“Sorry, yeah, um. Can I see Jeremy Heere?”

She types the name into her computer and scrunches her face up in something akin to a frown.

“Sorry, only family.”

“I’m his cousin?”

Michael tried, but the question mark was audible. He was pretty sure she would know he wasn’t family, especially if she’d ever seen Jeremy or Jeremy’s dad, since they were both very white. Michael was brown. To be fair, Michael and his mums were different races, but they were all still family.

“Immediate family.”

“Brother.”

She looked apologetic but refused him again. Michael rolled his head back and rubbed his eyes. It was some sort of physical reset to attempt to put himself past it. It didn’t work.

“Can I see Rich Goranski?”

“Uh, sure. Is that spelt G-O-R-A-N?”

“Maybe.”

“Richard?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, you can see him, you got to sign in though. Sorry about Jeremy, if it were up to me I’d let you in.”

Michael nods in response. She seems nice and as much as he wants her to break the rules, he doesn’t think she deserves the consequences just for Michael’s sake.

He walked the familiar route back to Jeremy’s room, which was now only Rich’s room, since apparently Jeremy was moved. When he entered, it was darker than it normally was, and more spacious, since there wasn’t a bed next to the door, and the light above said bed wasn’t on. Someone had gathered and moved the gifts on Jeremy’s table, but the table itself was still there, no longer bedside. The chairs were still there too, something Michael felt grateful for. They were familiar.

When the door clicked shut, Rich looked up from his book and makes a confused face at Michael.

“Hi.”

Michael waved back, but Rich looked apprehensive.

“You’re here.”

Michael didn’t understand the need to point it out. He was indeed there.

“Yeah. Is that okay?”

“No, I mean, yeah, of course. I just expected you to be in Jeremy’s room. They moved him.”

“They won’t let me see him.”

“Oh, right, okay.”

His expression shifted, but Michael still wasn’t dealing with those right now. He walked across the room to the set of chairs on the other side where Rich’s bag sat. He moved the bag and made himself comfortable, facing Rich like he would face Jeremy, and extending his legs through the plastic arms.

Rich smiles at him. Michael nods back. Rich grabs one of the pile of pillows surrounding him, offering it to Michael. Michael takes it and puts it behind his back. It’s a hell of a lot more comfortable than the arm of the plastic chair.

“You okay?”

Michael shrugs. Rich stares at him for a minute longer before accepting this and continuing his book.


End file.
